Wicked Ink : A Mass Effect Tale
by GrimJack21502
Summary: In London, Shepard has fallen on his way to his destiny and the Crucible remains inert. Dying and alone, he rests in the very heart of the Reaper horde. But where strength can fail, Love endures forever. This is the story of such love. This is the story of eternity. This is the story of Jack.
1. Along Comes the Wicked

(Author's Note: For reference, this story assumes that Shepard fell on his way to the beam. No 'ending' has been selected, as he never got up from the blast that severely wounded him in the game. Thanks so much for the support!)

* * *

A lithe silhouette, outlined by the spectral flames and crematorium smoke of a dying city, sprang from the makeshift bulwark of the Alliance line. For a beat, the form seemed suspended above the deconstructed city, and with the momentary defiance of gravity, the being appeared otherworldly…divine.

But, as was the way with moments, time slogged on.

Combat boots blasted ancient London's history-laden dust with her landing. Sending particles that had seen the births and deaths of monarchs and poets swirling into an atmosphere hot with murder. Before her stretched a wide lane littered with the shattered remnants of the Alliance's Hammer Squad; while just beyond the field of fallen heroes, glowed a column of light that blasted toward a Heaven she knew didn't exist.

It wasn't a lack of faith that tempered her expectations for a life after this one…it was the presence of the three monstrous death machines flanking the beam. For if Heaven, and by default God, existed, how could a supreme being allow such horrors to walk and rape the Universe?

In an auto-response to the scene, blue energy rippled along her tattooed arms, up her neck, and lifted the still foreign feeling hair off her scalp. As her eyes narrowed, her power sparked and flickered between the two orbs, lending a black magic quality to the science dominated scene. Slowly she rolled her neck, loosening the tension housed beneath her painted flesh and popping a few compliant vertebrae.

Behind her a powerful 'thud' marked the arrival of her running mate in the upcoming race.

'This is crazy, Jack. As much as I want to be wrong, Shepard's dead. No one could've lived through that."

'He's alive,' she stated simply, 'and I'm going to get him.'

Turning to face the Turian, she hissed.

'If you don't have the sack, Vakarian, go back and send me someone that does.'

Mandibles flickered in what Jack had learned was Garrus's species' equivalent of a sly smile.

'Two things you should know about me: one, I'm a fan of 'crazy' that's why I walk beside your man, and two, I got enough sack to shame Tuchanka."

Turning back to the killing field, Jack allowed a smirk of her own to briefly ghost across her rage filled face.

'He lives, Garrus.'

It wasn't a statement designed to comfort or convince her large companion.

It was a statement of certainty absolute.

'Stay close and keep the little shit off of me.'

Sniper rifle at the ready, Garrus mandibles flickered again, and even though Jack wasn't looking, he nodded.

'Lets go get him.'

With Garrus's support, the groan of war was pushed to the periphery, and Jack's eyes settled on the three Reapers guarding the beam. London paused its wail of agony long enough for a whisper to slip from her lips, a whisper possessed of the same strength and endurance of the singular woman that birthed it.

'Here comes the wicked.'

First Jack started to march down the broad avenue of holocaust, but soon her boots blurred, and the woman known as Subject Zero raced toward three giants…and the man that she loved above all others.


	2. Arrival

(42 minutes prior)

Below the lone combat shuttle, London's corpse sprawled in every direction; with the glow of advanced particle weapons and simple fires acting as the chalk line around the vast megalopolis. In contrast to the inky black and the conflagration of corpses, a brilliant beam struck from the center of the city toward the night sky and beyond.

Without thoughts or designs toward strategy, the single vessel screamed toward the tower of photon and light; its mad flight fueled by the potential of a loss far larger than the toppling of a universe.

'Say again!', the shuttle pilot screamed into her headset.

*Allied fo…eavy…sses*

'This is Lt. Saville! I'm Two minutes outbound from the muster point! I am caring vital cargo for Commander Shepard! Respond!'

*…Oun…star…fa…ack…*

'Say again!? Dammit, I can't make out a thing!'

Suddenly the head of the shuttle's lone passenger appeared beside the pilot's.

'What's going on,' Jack demanded.

Saville pointed to the erratic LED over her communication's station.

'The sons-of-bitches have been interrupting long range comms for the last half hour. Can't understand a fu…"

As if on cue, the signal cleared long enough for one crystalline, apocalyptic statement.

*Shepard has fallen! I repeat Commander Shepard has fallen!*

Silence, like the promises of the unjust, fell over the two women.

Brutal flashes of memories steeped in violence cut into Subject Zero. A history of torture, loneliness, betrayal and imprisonment threatened to derail her sanity, but, as it always did, Shepard's image appeared in her dark mind and brought forth a light, brought forth hope.

Despite the despair laced into each syllable of the broadcast, Jack knew, as only the truest of loves could, that Shepard yet lived, but even with the utter and complete faith she had in his survival, Jack could feel him fading.

Shepard was in the dark, alone and seemingly abandoned.

Jack's eyes narrowed; the orbs awash in determination, chaos and the promise of pain delivered for the Reapers.

'Get me on the ground…now.'

With the communication's dire news, the battle-hardened pilot, a witness to the end of countless lives, lifted the back of her gloved hand to her mouth and whispered.

'No, God no…no…no.'

Above and beyond his unmatched heroics and seemingly immortal shell, Shepard stood, for Saville and countless others, as a symbol of humanity's ability to challenge against any obstacle and conquer any threat, even the Reapers.

Now, if even their champion could topple…what hope did the rest of his species have?

'Get me on the ground,' Jack repeated with a haunting growl, an animality fashioned beneath Cerberus's scalpels.

'I should pull us back. We need to regroup…for a final stand I guess.'

The pilot seemed adrift, drugged by thoughts of a world without a hero.

Suddenly, Jack's tattooed hand clawed the front of Saville's flight suit, while the other one pointed through the forward window toward the column of light.

'I don't have time for broken spirits, bitch! Set this shuttle down right there. Do it now.'

To emphasize a point that did not require it, Jack's biotics flared and snarled around her body.

Incapable of debate and apparently aware of how outmatched she was, Lt. Saville simply nodded and began a rapid decent toward the forward lines of the Alliance's remaining ground forces.

Strangely no anti-aircraft threatened their approach. Perhaps The Reapers, sensing victory, were merely taking their time.

While still twenty feet from the surface, Jack banged on the hard frame of the shuttle door and drew the pilot's attention.

'Fallen doesn't mean dead! Reapers, Grim Reaper, it doesn't matter!", Jack shouted over the thrusters. 'If Shepard's proven anything, it's that death is just another fucker to beat!'

And with that she leapt from the craft.


	3. The Beginning

(The Present)

If Death, itself, could procreate, it would have birthed the bastards charging the valiant Turian.

While his sniper rifle main-lined oblivion, pure and uncut, into the growing horde of Reaper foot soldiers, Garrus Vakarian's eyes snapped from target to target, but with each shot, the gibbering faces of their Indoctrinated foes edged closer and closer. First five, then ten, then twenty; soon where there had been a 'number', a wave crashed from the shadows and cracks of fallen buildings and blasted streets.

Slowly Garrus started muttering.

At first, he spit monosyllabic bursts of encouragement.

'Nice!', would follow a particularly spectacular shot.

'Yes!', when the round travelled through more than one enemy.

As the enemy grew in size and might, so too did Vakarian's challenges.

'Not so fast, beautiful!', followed the demise of a gruesome Husk.

'Gonna light you up!', acted as epitaph for a Cannibal.

Still all the peacocking in the worlds couldn't change the facts, and chief among those absolutes was that the enemy was winning. Finally even Garrus knew that the time had come to either fall back…or fall.

'We need to retreat, Jack!', Garrus roared over the hot noise of enemy fire.

Hearing no response, he continued to deal death in a manner befitting an archangel; all-the-while holding his ground, despite the surge of shambling frights descending upon him. For the briefest of beats, Vakarian believed that Jack had already fallen, devoured by a pocket of foes that had escaped their initial charge deep into enemy territory, but before that line of thinking could continue, the ground beneath him exploded.

Having no idea how he ended up lying on his side, Garrus went to retrieve his weapon, but his fingers paused over the gun's metal. With a flex of his mandibles, the equivalent of a human 'jaw drop', the Turian found himself with a front row seat to the show-of-shows.

As close as he was, Garrus could actually feel the tingle and heat of Jack's biotics, something he had never experienced during all of his crusades fighting beside the mysterious caste of 'magicians'. Energy, nearly white with barely contained holocaust, licked and raged along the woman's torso and arms. So powerful were her biotics that the waves of might seemed to animate her tattoos, making it appear as if her very skin rippled with nightmares.

Somehow, whether by her own choice or the sheer strength or her 'magic', she was nude from the waist up; her leather and cloth attire gone, and when each ribbon of power bolted up her neck, more of her hair curled and vanished in wisps of smoke. Soon, she appeared as he had initially met her, bald and terrifying.

With even the all-encompassing sight of the amped Subject Zero, Garrus found something else on which to marvel; something so compelling that even Jack's godlike visage dimmed. Around, and above, them, the Reaper horde twisted and wailed higher and higher into the English air.

Launched by the rage of Jack's biotics, the Reaper's cannon fodder fulfilled its duty in glorious fashion.

A second later, and the enemy was gone.

Dimly Garrus was aware of what sounded like artillery fire off to their right, but he quickly deduced that the 'shells' he heard were the bodies of the foes Jack had banished, falling back to earth.

With the area completely deserted, Vakarian finished the act of grabbing his weapon, stood, and slowly approached his companion. With each step the heat and 'charge' of her biotics intensified, until he was forced to stop five paces from her side.

'He's close,' the mercurial woman whispered, a barely audible statement not meant for Turian ears.

'Jack?', the former lawman and vigilante cautiously asked. 'I've never seen…never heard…Jack, what the hell was that?'

Keeping her back to Garrus, Subject Zero responded, 'The Beginning, Vakarian.'


	4. Children of the Normandy

(Author's Note: Had a great question about whether or not this was a refusal ending. This story actually takes place before the selection of any ending. Shepard never makes it to the beam. Hope that clears it up. Thanks so much for the question and support!)

(38 minutes ago)

'Garrus!', Tali yelled. 'She's here.'

With the combat shuttle kicking up dust behind her, Jack emerged as if from the very darkness and fog of London; a demonic being summoned with pentagram and black mass. Energy, amped with rage and scientific theory, twisted along her entire being, but the display of power paled against the might of her gaze. Eyes kissed with bolts of biotic flame bore through the gathered sons and daughters of the Normandy, dismissed their existence, and instead pierced beyond the obstacles of friend, foe, stone and steel to find her one absolute destination, Shepard.

Each footfall carried her toward the Alliance bulwark and the great beam beyond, and it didn't take a tactician to realize she had no intention of stopping. But suddenly, where there had only been her 'goal' before, a giant armored Turian now stood.

'Jaaaack,' Garrus drug the word for several beats, attempting to 'question' the woman while also gaining her attention.

Dust and hate swirled to a pregnant stillness, as Jack's combat boots paused their charge.

'I'm going to say this once, Vakarian. Get the fuck out of my way.'

''Fraid I can't d…', Garrus's refusal fell, as he found himself jerked into the night.

Weapons of every conceivable design drew down on Jack, as soon as her biotics enveloped the Turian and lifted him off the ground.

'Put him down, Jack,' Tali commanded from behind both her helmet and her sub-machine gun. 'Now.'

'We are all grieving, Jack,' Liara T'Soni softly spoke, as she walked toward the raging woman. 'Shepard was…'

'IS, Bitch! Don't talk about him like he's dead!', Subject Zero nova'd with the decree.

'You self-righteous pricks!', Jack shouted at Liara, at them all. 'If you all 'love' him so much, you should all be lying next to him! Fucking cowards!'

'He…tricked…us,' Garrus choked from his elevated position. 'We were…scattered…adhering…to a plan…a plan…he didn't follow. Shepard spearheaded…the charge with EDI…and Vega. He…tricked us…to keep us alive.'

With the revelation, Jack released Garrus, unceremoniously dropping him back to the earth, yet even with her acquiescence, the rest of the group kept their guns trained on the deadly being.

'Okay, lets say I believe he fucked you over. What was 'his' plan then?', Jack demanded. 'Why was Shepard charging that…whatever the hell that is?'

'It's the only way to the Citadel,' Liara explained. 'Shepard was trying to get up there and open the station so the Crucible can dock. We bel…'

'I don't give a shit about your theories, T'Soni', Subject Zero interrupted. 'All I care about is that Shepard fell trying to get to that beam.'

Misconstruing Jack's musings as acceptance of the situation, Liara continued.

'The plan now is to fall back, but we will not leave him. Katsumi is prepping a team to bring back Shepa…to bring back his body.'

Jack's eyes flicked left and right, while in her mind, hammer and chisel began to fashion a plan of her own, one of rescue and not retrieval.

'Yeah…fuck that plan, Shadow Broker. Where's the Thief?', Subject Zero snapped. 'I need her, and one of those goddamned 'two-horned Salarians'…one of the sneakier ones.'

As an aside, Jack muttered under her breath, 'Figures the only salamander I could stand went and hero'd out.'

A circle had formed around Jack, a circle composed of the crew of the Normandy past and present, and while their faces expressed sympathy for the lover of their fallen leader, they also displayed a loyalty to Shepard that hadn't ended with his 'death'. They meant to do everything in their considerable power to follow their commander's unspoken 'last order' and stop Jack from committing suicide.

Returning her attention to the scene at hand, it took only a blink for Subject Zero to ascertain the crews' bent. For one that had lived the majority of her life in chains, Jack knew a 'snare' when she saw one.

'Can't let you throw your life away, Jack', Garrus spoke as he advanced slowly.

'Let us help you,' Tali offered, as she too moved forward.

All along the circle, the Normady's crew moved closer: Liara, Ashley, Zaeed, Grunt, Samara, the Cheerleader, and the aforementioned Garrus and Tali. Shepard's closest friends, his family, now sought to save one of their own from herself.

'Don't make this a goddamn'd event, girl', Massani growled. 'Stand down and save it for the bastards.'

Fighting through her comrades, while not impossible in her current state, would certainly deplete a large amount of her new reserves. Instead Jack opted for the next best thing…

She laughed.

Without taking his full attention from the cackling madwoman, Garrus deadpanned.

'You cracking up, Jack?'

Gone as suddenly as it appeared, her mirth fled, and with her response, Jack started to spin slowly, taking in each member of the squad.

'I'm going out there to get Shepard, and I'm going alone.'

'Why,' Liara breathed, her own pain clearly soaking the word. 'If you're determined to go, why go alone?'

In a rare display of sympathy, Jack slowly shook her head, 'Because I can't protect you all.'

Grunt and Zaeed each produced simultaneous, derisive snorts, while the rest of the group cast more subtle cues of incredulity.

'What makes you think we need your 'protection', Jack?', Garrus spat, his patience at an end.

Turning to face Liara, Subject Zero continued. 'You asked 'why'. The answer…because this moment is why I was made.'

Near the edge of the circle, Miranda's eyes narrowed. A barely perceptible 'tell', but one that did not escape the notice of Jack's heightened senses.

Without even looking at the ex-Cerberus cheerleader, Subject Zero pointed one slender tattooed digit her way.

'Ask her.'


	5. Road Sign

(The Present)

Keeping her back to Garrus, Jack lifted spasming fingers to quickly wipe away the blood trickling from her nose. Her digits, autonomous with their own jerky movements, failed to do little more than smear the dark liquid along her cheek. But cleanliness was the least of her problems.

Pounding with a pulse too erratic for her heart, her head produced a pain so intense that her vision tripled and flared. To keep from stumbling, Jack kept her combat boots planted in her customary wide-stance and prayed that simple muscle memory would keep her upright. Beneath her, London rolled as if the entire island had been set adrift, becoming the greatest of Her Majesty's Ships.

'Jack?', carrying more than a hint of concern, Garrus's voice bled from the darkness behind her. 'Jack, I can't get any closer…the heat. You're burning up.'

_'Burning up?'_, she thought. _'But I'm so cold.'_

Reaching up, her fingers paused expecting to find her ponytail of hair but instead found the smooth skin of her bald head. Somehow that was what began to settle the raging behind her eyes. The comforting sensation, and the normalcy inherent with the feeling, produced a calming blanket that eased the pain striking her body and mind.

'He's close, Vakarian,' Jack's strong cadence the antithesis of the debilitating maelstrom raging inside her body.

The main avenue ran off to their right with the beam and the three Reapers, the tops of which where visible over the jagged crackle of splintered buildings. According to telemetry reports, Shepard's last known position put him in the middle of the open space of the avenue, but Jack had led them to the left amongst the rubble and the cover it provided.

'I thought you were bringing us this way to stay clear of their main force?', the Turian questioned. 'He wouldn't be over here. Shepard would've been where the fighting was thickest…that's his way.'

Jack appreciated Garrus's use of tense, and though she'd never admit it, the strength his presence seemed to gift her, but despite the Turian's beliefs, Shepard was nearby because it was here that the battle had drawn him.

'Something pulled him from the avenue,' Jack explained, 'Whether it was a blast or…something else. This is where Shepard's run stalled.'

Her 'heat' must have retreated because Garrus was able to move beside her. With one quick glance at her face, the veteran knew something was wrong, terribly wrong.

'For God's sake, Jack, you're injured! We need to fall bac…'

'Go if you want, Vakarian,' her voice dropped lower, 'me…I'm not done my run.'

Too tired to fight and not particularly looking for an argument while they were so deep in enemy territory, Garrus opted to return to business.

'What are you looking for?', the Turian questioned his enigmatic companion.

'A road sign,' Jack breathed, 'Something to get us closer to Shepard.'

Cocking his head to the side, Garrus stared at her for a few beats before speaking.

'Saying stuff like that isn't very comforting.'

A snort, the closest thing Jack could get to laughter, appeared, as did the slightest of smiles, 'You know, Vakarian, you aren't half the prick I pegged you for.'

Garrus returned the half-smile with one of his own.

'Oh yes I am, its just that most get lost in my classic good looks and let it slide.'

'I don't let anything slide,' Jack replied.

'I know that you don't,' Garrus joked back, 'So wh…'

'There!', Jack interrupted, pointing to an 'A' frame of rubble off to their right.

His naked eyes not enough, Garrus brought up his rifle scope, squinted, and then sucked in a bite of air. By the time, he had pulled down his weapon, Jack was already halfway to the rubble, so the Turian kept his head low and double-timed his stride in pursuit.

By the time Garrus caught up, Jack was squatting at the base of the rubble, speaking softly.

'Where is he?'

Slight movements filtered around Subject Zero's painted form, marking the addition of a new participant in the evening's festivities.

Garrus crept closer just in time to see a metal finger point to a neighboring pile of stone and iron. A heading given, Jack flashed off, revealing the crushed and shattered torso of the Normandy's resident intelligence.

'EDI!', Garrus knelt beside his fallen comrade, uncertain where, or how, to help.

Her now twisted metal alloy made it hard to distinguish EDI from the structure on top of her, while liquids of unknown origin ran like mercury to pool at various points beneath her.

'My God, EDI, what can I do? Tell me what to do,' Garrus begged.

The Turian felt something slip around his gloved hand and looked down to see EDI's fingers laced with his own.

Gripping her hand as tightly as he dared, he repeated,

'What can I do?'

With half of her face crushed flat by a girder, her voice, so weak despite the eerie stillness of the space, seemed to come from some deep well.

'stay…while…I…die.'


	6. Cheerleaders and Criminals

(30 minutes ago)

'Why, Miranda', Tali questioned.

Subject Zero jabbed her finger at the ex-Cerberus agent,

'She knows what I a…'

'I theorized, Jack,' Miranda interrupted, 'I had no prior knowle…'

Jack's eyes rolled at Miranda.

'You always fucking knew, bitch. Your involvement with the Lazarus project proves it. What they did to me? The modifications? The rebuilding? Sound similar?'

'I didn't r…,' Miranda began but was cut off.

'You brought him back to life!? All those implants, all the grafting and fucking _rewiring_? Don't you see!', Jack spun to take them all in. 'Don't any of you see! Of all the beings, living or dead, me a Shepard, we're the only two of our kind!

'I had no idea you were the subject of those reports, Jack,' Miranda whispered.

'You're a lot of things, Lawson, but dumb ain't one of them. Soon as the Illusive Man added my dossier to his rogues gallery, you got my file. You knew what I was and what they did to me before we even met. You and your perfect fucking brain couldn't have been fooled by the simple connection of dots.'

Miranda's silence elicited another snort from Jack.

'They won't believe me,' Jack absently waved her painted hand at the group, 'so I want you to tell them what I am. I want you to tell them _why_ I am.'

A hint of pain bled into the condemnation, in syllables only uttered successfully by the betrayed,

'It took years of experimentation, of fucking killing myself, to uncover the truth hinted at in the files Shepard gave me. Finally it took Cerberus coming for me in Grissom for me to learn…to learn what you've always known.'

On cue, Subject Zero's eerie white biotics flared, prompting the circle of heroes to again raise their weapons.

'Tell…them.'

Long removed from any loyalty to her former employer, Miranda never-the-less hesitated, knowing the forthcoming admission would effectively end any debate concerning Jack's proposed mission.

'Talk, Miranda,' Garrus stepped forward, 'We can't spare the seconds for theatrics.'

'She…', Miranda started, trying and failing to select words that sounded less insane.

'She's…she's a Reaper killer.'

Looks of utter shock and disbelief filtered through all of the visible faces of the gathered warriors.

Not knowing what else to do, Miranda continued.

'Cerberus's desire for a human champion existed long before Shepard. They wanted an example for the Universe; one that clearly displayed humanity's supremacy. Efforts were made in cloning, genetic modification, and selective embryonic manipulation, but none produced anything more than a 'perfect' human.'

As if the last statement was her personal albatross, Miranda's head lowered before she continued.

'Cerberus needed something more…potent, so they began a Frankenstonian mix of all of their singular scientific pursuits to date. They would have their champion against the coming tide, no matter the cost in lives and souls. Jack was the first of what was to have been an army, but she ended up being the exception rather than the rule. Humans simply can't wield biotics at her capacity. Hell, Asari Matriarchs would burn out trying to match a tenth of her potential.'

'That's impossible,' Liara breathed.

'They killed countless children until they finally found the one singular being that could handle their…science. So its not impossible, just costly.'

'And Cerberus paid the price for power with the lives of innocents,' Tali spat inside her helmet.

'Yes,' Miranda stated simply.

'The Collector ship,' Garrus whispered, 'The Human Reaper…that's what they were doing. Feeding thousands to make one all-powerful life-form…it sounds like the same thing.'

'Yes', Miranda again responded simply and truthfully.

'Why not reveal this little, goddamn tidbit before now? Shepard sure as shit could've used a 'Reaper-killer'', Zaeed Masoni chewed the question like a mouth full of rocks.

'She's not perfect,' Miranda interjected before Subject Zero could answer. 'No being can do what she can without a pri…'

'Shut up,' Jack snapped. 'You've served your purpose, cheerleader, they know what they need to know.'

'They deserve to know the rest,' Miranda pushed her point.

'Just like I deserved to know!', Jack raged. 'If I'd known what I was I could've helped sooner! I could've kept him from being alone out there!'

Subject Zero's biotics roared in response to her anger; energy crackling and spitting off of her flesh.

'I could've been by his side! I could've fought them off of him! But you useless sons-of-bitches let him fall and now you are going to try and stop me from getting him with what? Philosophy!? Morality!?'

Forsaking her own safety, Miranda stepped forward. With her eyes locked on Jack, the ex-Cerberus agent spoke for the others.

'What do you need from us?'

Calming somewhat, Subject Zero allowed several seconds to lapse before nodding slightly at Miranda.

'I'm only going to have one chance at this. At first I thought I'd just go out and bring him back, but now I know that once I get him…'

'He'll want to continue to the beam,' Miranda finished.

Again Jack nodded,

'My power is finite, and where I'm going, I'll need every sliver of it. You know what I am, I'm a sponge not a faucet. I can carry a metric shit-ton of power, I just can't produce all of it.'

'You need biotics,' Miranda stated calmly. 'As many as we can get.'

This time, both women nodded in union; their minds in agreement.

Miranda spun on the others

'She is the only one that can save him. Find Katsumi and the 'sneaky' Salarian she requested; I'll muster the biotics.'

Glancing over her shoulder, the cheerleader smiled at the criminal,

'I have an idea what Jack's up to. Perfect _fucking_ brains occasionally have their advantage.'

Stunned into silence, the group slowly shifted their attention back to Jack, regarding their companion with new gazes; gazes fresh with the horrific knowledge of her origin. Producing a bow and a half-smile, the demi-god known as Subject Zero 'presented' herself to her teammates, as if making their acquaintance for the first time.


	7. Sunrise

(The Present)

'Shepard!', Jack screamed as she scrambled toward the fresh pile of rubble to which EDI had pointed.

An insignificant thought skirted along the periphery of her subconscious; warning her that the enemy was searching for them and that loud noises compromised their position, but when love, fear and hope war within the soul, silence becomes the first causality.

While stone and brick comprised most of the space, the bone skeletons of Englishmen marked the macabre in the unstable mound of debris. Skulls, burned bright white by the might of the Reapers, flashed brilliantly among the soot and ash. In only a few precious seconds of searching, Jack's forearms were coated black to the elbow in the remains of buildings and builders. Consumed by the frantic need to find Shepard, she didn't consider any alternative to the manual nature of her search…until the first terrible shriek filled the Isle's air.

'Banshees,' she spat both dust and disgust to the ground.

Before the first wail subsided, another and another and another blasted into the black; a coven of mutated witches playing the roles of wolves. While their howls still seemed distant, she knew the unearthly creatures could cover a lot of ground very quickly.

'Jaaaack,' Garrus's voice called from his position beside EDI.

'I know, I know, goddammit!', she snapped with an irritation directed at the situation and not her Turian companion.

Her gaze snapped and lit over every piece of the rubble pile, looking for a sign…trying to find a way in that wouldn't cause the whole heap of debris to shift. One wrong move could result in a collapse, a collapse that could crush Shepard.

Her voice barely audible to her own ears was soaked in a weakness never before included in its composition.

'I…don't know what to do.'

Another wail, this one much closer, pierced the night.

'Jack!', Garrus, his right hand still holding EDI's, pointed with his left. 'Here they come!'

For a breath, the Banshees war cries subsided and silence again spilled into the space. Just as despair began to grip her heart, she heard it. Beneath her, a 'ting' of orchestrated rhythm oozed from the pile.

Metal-on-metal…even…deliberate.

'SHEPARD!,' Jack placed her face inches from the pile and screamed; her own shriek a match for any produced by the Banshees.

A beat passed and the 'ting' began again, only this time its rapidity demonstrated that Jack's cry had indeed been heard.

'I'M COMING!', Jack raged through her tears. 'Hold on! For God's sake, hold on!'

'JACK!', Garrus's warning arrived at the exact same moment the taloned hand enveloped the back of her head and jerked her into the air.

London became a city of slivers. Bits and pieces of the ancient town filtered between the Banshees fingers like the rational memories of the hopelessly insane. With the caged view came the pain and vertigo associated with both the monster's powerful grip and the casual way in which it tossed her around, Jack couldn't find her mental or physical footing in which to fight back.

And though it was surely just a trick of her mind, she was convinced she could still hear the 'ting' coming from the pile below.

Though muffled by the fingers of the fiend, Jack's cry carried forth with a strength only the heart could produce.

'SHEPARD!'

Sound in all of its chaotic variations erupted everywhere, as several contrasting 'melodies' leaked and melted into one song of destruction. The first was the shot of a weapon, the next a very different cry from the Banshee behind her, and the third, her own body smashing into the loose bone and dust of the pile.

As if removing a combat or V.I. Helmet, Jack pulled off the Banshee's clawed hand…and the finely severed forearm still attached to it. With her full sight restored, she found a scene nearly as dire as the one she had just left. Five Banshees blinked and warped around and between her position and Garrus's, while the Turian leapt and twirled, dodging wild spheres of biotic energy. Confusion somehow managed to override her observations, when she noticed Vakarian's sniper rifle lying abandoned along his route.

In front of her the now one-armed screaming Banshee became the question for which Jack had no answer.

_Who shot you?_

As Time's sand slowed and the moment slogged through the thick mud generated by adrenaline and war, Jack caught a glimpse of EDI still trapped beneath the mountain of metal and memory. With the slip of another grain, the 'metal woman's' pistol ejected a thermal clip, with the next a smile crawled across the undamaged side of her face, and with the next, a Banshee tore the rest of EDI's shattered body apart.

Recovering from its pain, the creature in front of Jack inhaled, readying another wail, but before it could be uttered, the Banshee found the enraged form of Subject Zero filling its vision, roaring with a war cry of her own.

'BURN, BITCH!'

Five hours before the Sol system's star was set to arrive, the 'sun' rose in London.


	8. Protection

(25 minutes ago)

Jack watched Miranda depart and the rest of the group reluctantly hurry off to either fulfill her requests or sulk. The former she cared about, the latter couldn't even be given the most cursory of 'fucks'.

'You will need someone to go with you.'

The melodic voice prompted Jack's eyes to roll before she turned and faced the last of her detractors, Liara T'Soni.

'You're right,' Jack surprisingly agreed.

As if shifting gears, the Asari cocked her head mechanically at Jack's statement.

'I'm confused,' Liara dared. 'You told the others you couldn't protect them and would therefore be going alone, and now you've told me that you need someone. I fear the only logical assumption is that you are lyi…'

'Game changed, T'Soni. I was fooling myself before, but now I know better…and I wasn't lying to the others, I can't protect them, but I can protect one person.'

'Shepard,' Liara stated plainly, allowing the single word to act as both clarification and orientation of task.

'No,' Jack again shocked the Broker of Shadows with her contrasting view.

'Once more, I fail to see the logic in your words,' Liara argued. 'Should I simply accept that you won't be telli…'

''Yes', I need someone to go with me, but 'no' I can't protect them any more than I will be able to protect myself, once the Reapers close.'

'Once you find him, how do you propose to get you and Shepard back to safety?'

Jack turned her back on the Asari and faced in the direction of the beam toward Shepard's last known location.

'I thought I could do just that. Run out, light some fuckers up, and get us both back here, but…that's not the plan anymore.'

'Because Shepard will look to finish his mission,' Liara finished for her comrade. 'If I may, bring him back here. We will regroup and try another approach. Suicide Missions might be something you and Shepard accept, but there must be another way. Let us find that way…together.'

Keeping her back to Liara, Jack paused allowing a gust of hot wind to play with her ponytail and the few strands of hair loose from its constraint. With the departure of the breeze, Subject Zero's words arrived.

'Philosophy and planning will end us just as quick as the Reapers. Shepard believes that, and that's why he left the rest of you behind. He needed to know that his orders, even the suicidal ones, would be followed, so he took with him the two members of the crew that do just that: EDI and Vega, the machine and the soldier.'

'You know him better than all of us,' the Asari's voice held just a hint of bitterness at the fact. 'Tell me, what does Shepard believe will win this, the darkest of our hours?'

With tears bleeding from her eyes, Jack turned to face the scientist.

'No fraction of 'nice' is needed, no amount of 'safe' or 'careful' gets this thing done. Stop looking for the smart way through this, Liara. There isn't a 'right path', no short cut. Happily ever after isn't an option…it never was.'

The Asari's own eyes glistened, 'So what is your secret weapon against the End of Days? What do you have that Shepard didn't?'

Spinning back toward the battlefield, Jack whispered her answer at the giant death machines guarding the beam.

'Rage.'

Together the two women, each in love with the man known as Shepard, stared out toward where he waited. So different in their appearances, carriages, and beliefs, yet so similar in the merits that truly mattered: loyalty, strength and love, they cut a contradictory yet complimentary slice of the universe. Jack representing what was; Liara what could have been.

'Who?', T'Soni whispered. 'If not Shepard, who can you protect?'

Jack's eyes rolled to regard one of the few people in all the worlds that she respected. With a breath measured and metered in the plain trappings of the scene, Subject Zero answered.

'You.'

(Author's Note: Thanks to everyone for reading...it means the world to me!)


	9. Jeff

(53 Seconds Ago)

The last Banshee wail swept by him on its tour of London.

'Jaaaack,' Garrus yelled to his companion.

'I know, I know, goddammitt!', she barked back.

Beneath his gloved fingers, EDI's grip spasmed in a very organic imitation of the throes of death; a powerful mirror by a supposedly 'artificial' being. Her one remaining eye pulsed with light, focusing, searching in point of fact.

'Jeff?', EDI whispered, 'Jeff, are you there? I'm…having difficulty…seeing. It is so…dark.'

The Turian opened his mouth, an honest reply on his tongue, but instead his voice disobeyed the stoicism of the soldier and answered with the words of a friend.

'Yes…I'm here…I'm here.'

Whether the grin that touched her half-face was relief or simply another spasm, Vakarian knew not, but he was glad for it regardless.

Another Banshee wail erupted; this one was much closer. With a glance, down the destroyed street, he saw the tell-tale blue flash of biotic transport.

Vakarian used his left hand to point out the enemy's location.

'Jack! Here they come!'

'Jeff?'

Garrus forced his eyes from the descending horror and gripped EDI's hand.

'I'm here…I'll always be here.'

'Jeff…I believe I know…what love is,' EDI's voice clicked in near silence. 'It's…an…equation…each side…must balance…for it to be…accurate.'

Having witnessed death for decades, Garrus was surprised when his own voice choked.

'T…that's the best way I've ever heard it described.'

Again the half-smile ghosted across EDI's ravaged face.

'You…are my missing…variable…Jeff, you are…my love.'

Garrus cupped her hand with both of his, 'You did it, EDI, you solved it. We are in balance.'

Pressing his pistol into her hand, Garrus drew close for one last moment with his friend.

'Jeff loves you. Until the end of it all.'

More sensing than actually seeing anything, the Turian rolled away from EDI just as a taloned hand swept the space recently occupied by his head. Selfless and heroic beyond the measure of even the greatest of History's heroes, Garrus sacrificed his own safety, and his chance to retrieve his sniper rifle, and screamed to his partner, just as a Banshee warped in behind her.

'JACK!'

Weaponless Vakarian bobbed, rolled and weaved, trying desperately to gain separation from the razor-handed frights. In a flash of color, his Omni-Tool's blade illuminated and deflected a claw an inch before it would have torn out his throat. For one frosty second, Turian and Monster regarded each other at a proximity usually reserved for lovers.

Twisted bone clicked and clacked through mortis'd muscle, as the Banshee's mouth clenched in anticipation of a kill. Despite the monstrosity before him, Garrus smiled.

'It might be today, beautiful, but you won't be the one to do it.'

Deftly spinning one hundred and eighty degrees, the greatest of Shepard's soldiers leaned back into the Banshee, driving his blade behind him…and through the Reaper Witch's abdomen. Consumed by its barely contained biotics, the creature immediately began to shrivel and melt, but Garrus was already moving back toward EDI.

But when he turned back toward his fallen friend, all he could do was bear witness.

Somehow, among all the wails and savagery, Garrus heard EDI's last words.

'Until…the end of it all.'

With a belch of death, the 'metal' woman's pistol fired, severing the arm of another Banshee and subsequently freeing Jack.

The Turian did not see another Banshee rip EDI apart, but he felt her passing, as one's soul always tremors at the loss of a loved one.

Five of the witches remained, and Garrus knew luck could only carry a soldier so far…and his was spent. With one last twist, the Turian slid to a stop and faced four of his foes. Raising the blade of his Omni-Tool, the Archangel warned the Banshees that the price of his life would be very, very steep.

'Who's coming with me!'

The blinding flare warned him a second before Jack's dire command captured the attention of the Banshees Vakarian faced.

'BURN, BITCH!'

(The Present)

The Banshees never turned back toward Garrus.

They didn't see him dive behind a toppled church bell.

The perverted Asari saw only one last thing…the dawn of Jack's rage.


	10. The Gift

(20 minutes ago)

Beautiful even while witnessing the armageddon of a cycle, the Asari's face scrunched in confusion.

'Protect me? I don't understand, Jack.'

'You will,' the super-human whispered. 'Follow me.'

Without waiting for an answer, Jack strode off toward the shattered storefront of what had previously been a corner market. Now the modest structure served as a communications hub for the forward ground forces.

'Get out,' Jack casually ordered the two techs inside.

Apparently well-informed on the woman in front of them, both gathered their things and made a hasty retreat into the street.

'Jack, I'm still n…', Liara began but before she could finish, Jack, with her back to her, began to speak.

'You weren't with Shepard when he found me…you didn't see where they had me. What they'd done.'

Not sure if the statements were rhetorical or not, Liara paused several seconds before responding.

'No, but I am aware of cryo-stasis. As a scientist, I have u…'

'Have you ever been under?', Subject Zero again interrupted. 'Not for medical purposes, just…under?'

'No, I haven't.'

Jack's shoulders rose and fell, as if she were panting, which she was.

'My metabolism is enhanced. Its one of the reasons I can house so much power, but it has its draw backs. Can't get drunk, well, not without really trying, can't diet, not that I give a shit about that, but the real bitch is I can't…'

'Sleep,' Liara answered with a pain laden breath. 'Goddess, the stasis, it wouldn't have b…'.

'I was awake,' Jack whispered back. 'Foggy but very much awake.'

'How long?', the Asari asked.

'There isn't any time in the Dark,' Jack's voice stayed a whisper. 'But when EDI helped me find my records, it looks like I was in 'stasis' a little over a month.'

'How did you keep f…', Liara started.

'I won't leave him in the Dark, T'Soni, but I won't be back once I free him. Together, Shepard and I are going to finish this.'

Liara moved closer, reaching for Jack's shoulder.

'I still don't see where I come into this scenario; why I am to be 'protected'.'

Subject Zero spun and faced the Asari, her flesh pale where it wasn't covered by artificial hue.

'I have something to give you, T'Soni.'

Without warning, biotic energy exploded all over Jack's body, crackling with combustion and blistered futures. The savage power bathed the two women in the polarizing light of both destruction…and creation.

'Goddess!' Liara gasped at the display. 'You've already absorbed power beyond your own. What have you done, Jack!?'

'My students,' Jack answered through the sizzle of her 'wattage'. 'They knew where I was going what I was doing. They gave me everything they had.'

'Are they…?', the Asari dared.

'They live,' a lone tear travelled down Jack's cheek with the admission. 'They are my kids…my children…I would never harm them, or let them harm themselves by aiding me.'

Shaking off the strangeness of the scene, the scientist in Liara approached the situation with a more linear thought train.

'What are you going to give me, Jack?'

Instead of answering, lightning sprang to life between Subject Zero's palms like a handheld globe of arcane focus. Slowly Jack began to turn her palms back toward herself.

Liara's eyes widened.

'Goddess,' the Asari allowed the anguish-riddled word to fall to the filthy floor of the destroyed market.

Jack's hands hovered over her own stomach, and then slipped lower. Lifting her head to the ceiling, tears streamed down her cheeks until they ran in rivers of grief along her jaw.

The woman known as Subject Zero started to scream a second before her biotics lanced into her own body.

Knowing what the human was attempting, Liara stepped forward and yelled into Jack's face, while the driven energy greedily slithered through Subject Zero.

'DO NOT DO THIS, JACK!'

The human's eyes rained a storm of uncut anguish, but her banshee howl formed a response.

'I WILL NOT LEAVE HIM IN THE DARK!'

Liara didn't dare grab Jack's arm, knowing that such an act could redirect the delicate nature of the human's actions, so instead she stepped closer until she was nose-to-nose with her comrade.

'IF HE LIVES, WE WILL SAVE HIM…TOGETHER!'

Suddenly, with the speed of a Hangman's drop, Jack's left hand wrapped around the back of Liara's neck and her right palm, glowing with a golden light, slammed into the Asari's abdomen.

Their eyes met, and in that instant a lifetime of memories passed between them; to further join them, Jack's biotics mingled with Liara's, as the Asari's involuntarily flared in response to the act.

Around them, the gray and shattered market simply ceased to be. Stone and timber, plastic and glass vanished in a puff of atoms, casualties of biological witchcraft. One barrier globed both Human and Asari from the maelstrom but despite appearances, the real storm raged within, not without.

Painted flesh met blue skin, as Jack's forehead touched Liara's. Energy swirled and souls mingled with the exchange. The very foundation of life stuttered between them, with eons of evolution burned to the bright white of its skeleton.

Cobbled together from the fiendish machinations of lunatics and brutal geniuses, Subject Zero had harnessed a power here-to-fore reserved for deities.

Jack had torn the cocoon away from Life itself.

'Goddess,' Liara cried, 'what you have done…is impossible.'

'You haven't seen anything yet,' Jack whispered through the last of her tears.


	11. Falling Rain

(Long Ago)

The floor held no warmth, not even the heat it leached from her thin body seemed to stay housed within the plastic and metal. Despite the dire nature of her situation, a strange satisfaction drifted through her exhausted mind.

'_At least a part of me got out_.'

Slowly her hand slid from beneath her head, travelled along her protruding ribs, and came to rest at the bandaged site of her latest surgery. They'd put something else inside her; she could feel it deep in her abdomen, like a cramp wrapped around a shard of obsidian.

The anesthesia had failed completely toward the end. Since sleep had been taken from her after an earlier procedure, she figured it must have also counteracted the drugs, awakening her to a new world of pain.

Medieval leather straps, crisp and stained with the blood of countless slaughters, had held her in place, but she had known they were for show, since several weak biotic fields had held her completely immobilized while the madmen hacked at her.

Through the surgery's final horrific minutes, the masked butchers had laughed at her wails, even going so far as to comment on the inferiority of her sex for this particular operation.

'Wish we could find a male. Working around all this shit wastes time.'

His mask flowing into what must have been a grin, the second surgeon had added, 'Fuck being careful. Isn't like she'll ever have kids.'

That had been hours ago…or minutes…or years; the pain made the telling of time difficult.

Determined to deny her captors the satisfaction of seeing her weep, she had commanded her eyes to remain dry for months, but this time, the pain was too great and her grief manifested.

_'Isn't like she'll ever have kids.'_

Dimly, as if in a fever dream, she saw the silhouette of the faceless form she knew to be her mother, a woman she hadn't seen since she was four. Like all orphans, she had conjured up the 'idea' of a mom from feelings, wishes, and the cave drawings of a mind too young for such loss.

The shadow didn't say anything, instead it's fingers touched the floor beside her and began to gently tap. The staccato 'song' calmed her and gave her something, other than pain, on which to focus.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened then, her mother's shade was gone but the tapping of the uneven melody remained. More vibration than actual noise, she pressed her ear against the chill of the floor and fought the despair with the song's notes.

Her escape from captivity had been a traumatic affair; one that produced more confusion and questions than it did answers. However, one mystery was solved as soon as she made it outside. With her face to the sky, Jack had quickly realized that the 'music' she had heard for years was in actuality the rain falling on the Teltin facility on Pragia; each drop vibrating through the pre-fabricated structure until it reached her waiting ears.

Several times a day before her 'freedom', she would hear her mother's music, and it instantly granted her focus despite the day's horrors. Still even the song couldn't illuminate all of the place's darkness, and just when she would nearly find a measure of peace, one utterance, thick with evil, would invade her calm.

_'Isn't like she'll ever have kids.'_

(The Present)

Her mother's song…Jack heard it.

But this wasn't Pragia and in London no rain fell…yet her mother's 'song' remained.

Slowly she opened her eyes.

Around her the ash and soot of massacred London had fused into an eerie patchwork of what appeared to be baked earth and distorted glass. For five feet in every direction, the terrain remained the same bizarre geological amalgamation; though the destruction extended beyond the borders of Jack's immediate area.

Metal and stone smoked in the night air, the inheritors of the nova of heat brought to the space by Subject Zero. The bearer of the blast came courtesy of the most powerful biotic flare to have ever graced the planet; one that had created the aforementioned environmental alterations but had also reduced the Banshees to just five more whips of smoke among the others.

As she had done in Teltin, Jack lay curled on her side, ear pressed to the ground. The debilitating pain that had manifested earlier again wracking her body. Mortar rounds exploded behind her eyes, and her naked torso fought against itself in a war of convulsion and seizure.

Yet the 'notes', the vibrations, of her mother's song cut through the agony, lending her the focus only one as tortured as she could obtain.

Slowly as the pain eased, the 'tap' of her mother's song became a 'ting', the 'ting' of metal-on-metal.

Shepard.

With a will born in prisons of the mind and body, Subject Zero rolled until she faced the ground, where her warped, carnivalesque reflection returned her gaze from the glassy surface. Instantly, her image in the mirrored patch conjured more memories of Teltin, memories of tortures and trials. Her reflection cried against the pain; the little lost girl stolen from her mother because of the desires of monsters.

One drop of blood ran from her nose and struck her image. Soon others followed, making a mockery of her mother's song and Shepard's signals by mimicking the erratic tempo and striking the fused earth, and the girl reflected there, in a macabre melody.

_'Isn't like she'll ever have kids.'_

The statement so damning during her captivity now acted as a rallying point, and with its arrival, her strength mustered.

'Shepard,' she whispered, as blood-specked spittle misted from her lips.

Bent but never broken, Subject Zero slapped her palm down on her bloody reflection and viscously wiped it away in a smear of crimson. The muscles in her shoulders fired and flexed beneath her thin flesh, as she began to push away the ground and the shattered reminder of her former self.

'You pulled…me from…the dark…Shepard,' Jack breathed. 'Saved me.'

First one knee planted against the glass beneath her, and then a combat boot found its purchase, and slowly…she rose.

_'Isn't like she'll ever have kids.'_

'Shepard…you…proved…them…wrong,' she whispered; each syllable a pledge of love and certainty.

Standing at ground zero of the similarly titled Subject, Jack lifted her hand and made a fist. Again the blistering white-hot biotic energy clawed its way over her frame, but this time her target wasn't the Reaper horde…it was the ground beneath her.

'Call my name,' she whispered.

The 'mirror' beneath her exploded. Soot and dust tried to choke the air, but a globe of energy appeared, and like a vacuum, began pulling in the tiny particles, clearing the area. As each larger piece of debris was revealed, Jack carefully lifted it upward until it seemed the parts of an entire building floated above the spot.

Against Jack's painted flesh, sweat streaked with blood and grime, dulling even her bright canvas. If the exertion pained her, no reflection of the trauma reached her features. Instead her own voice, clear and strong, repeated one simple command.

'Call my name!'

Wider and deeper, her search expanded, and more debris lifted into the London air.

'Call my name!

Despite her best efforts, Teltin, and its tendrils of cancerous doubt, began to slither into her mind, inviting despair.

'Call my name!'

Perhaps her mother had been nothing more than the fabrication of a desperate child.

A large girder joined the others revealing…nothing.

'CALL MY NAME!'

Perhaps the 'ting', like her mother's song, was just the rain…just a lie, a trick of her mind.

A crumbled wall of plaster was drawn into the glowing sphere…nothing.

'CALL MY NAME!'

_'Isn't like she'll ever have kids.' _

Perhaps…

An ancient metal tub marred by the rubble but still sound rose into the night…and a battered hand clutching a set of N7 dog tags appeared.

No longer a 'ting' but still just as weak…one 'note' lifted to her ears.

'jack'


	12. Batteries

(15 minutes Ago)

Somehow Jack appeared as she had before her encounter with Liara. The pain and loss of the event pushed from her appearance and posture with a force of will few others could wield. She tried to convince herself that to dwell on what she had just done accomplished nothing more than to infuse an already desperate situation with the weight of grief. Sadness, despair, these pieces had to be removed from the board so she could better focus on the game about to be played…a game with the very highest of stakes.

So Jack shouldered the devastating ache, as she had so many other burdens in her life, and though she appeared cold or indifferent, she was anything but. Behind her eyes a war raged, one where her future with Shepard was already among the fallen.

She would never be his wife.

They would never grow old in the other's arms.

She would never meet her child.

Despite the countless losses, Jack knew this was the only way to save Shepard and finish their mission.

Her own death was a price she was willing to pay, but she would not sacrifice everything…not everything. No, when the heavens fell, she couldn't afford any distractions.

Yet for the first time in her life, Jack couldn't compartmentalize the pain, banish her feelings, and focus on her task; there wasn't a trick or psychological tactic that could quell the emptiness she felt throbbing inside. So profound was the hurt that it dwarfed the sadistic surgeries of her earlier years.

No fiend-wielded-scalpel could ever match the honed edge of happiness denied.

Before the tears returned, Subject Zero diverted her thoughts to the spectacle around her and used the only distraction left to her: words.

'Always knew I'd end up on the business end of a firing squad,' Jack deadpanned.

In the shattered intersection that, until recently, had been home to a corner market, a gathering of biotics of all races stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a large circle, and in the center, like the hub of a wheel or a great druidic tree of worship, grew Subject Zero.

'So, Jack, how does this work?', Miranda questioned from her spot in the ring.

'I'll raise my barrier and you all hit it with every thing you've got. Full spectrum, combo your fields, I don't have to tell you how to fight, so to put it in the simplest terms…treat me like a fucking Reaper.'

Several of the Adepts looked nervously at one another, but it was again Miranda who alone voiced the concerns of the collective.

'That type of power will kill you, Jack.'

Normally beings subjected to the horrors that had been brought to bear on Subject Zero would have descended into either madness or death, and during their fall lost both the mental and physical components necessary to be considered 'human'. Yet, somehow, just as Jack's 'luck' gifted her with the ability to survive Cerberus's trials, her will enabled her to maintain both her mind and her beauty…the latter of which was on full display, when, with a forced brilliant-white-smile, she responded to Miranda's proclamation.

'Always told you you'd need an army, bitch,' Jack's hands swept right and left, noting the gathered phalanx of biotics. 'Guess its a fair fight now.'

Glossy with a sheen of sweat, Liara T'Soni nudged through the circle, to stand beside Miranda.

'That's not an answer, Jack. Once everyone starts deploying fields and triggering explosions, it'll be too late to stop.'

'Not 'everyone',' Subject Zero stated calmly. 'You have another job.'

Absently, the Asari's azure hand pressed against her own abdomen, still warm from her encounter with Jack.

'So this is my 'protection'?', Liara whispered.

'No,' Jack stepped forward until she was standing in front of the Asari. 'You are the protector, T'Soni. You are our last line of defense. If Shepard and I are to _win_ this, you need to stay safe…and survive.'

'After you win,' Liara's eyes bled fresh tears, 'what do I te…'

'Just,' Jack fought back her own emotions. 'Just…remember it all. Tell our story, T'Soni…you're the only one that can.'

'I will, Jack,' Liara started to turn to quit the circle, but quickly looked back. 'When you find him, tell him I…I…'

'I will, Liara,' Jack finished.

Unable to say anything more, the Asari nodded, smiled sadly, and left.

Stepping back to the center, Jack summoned all her strength and held her tears in check.

'Now for the 'easy' part,' she spat. 'Okay, light me up!'

Her barrier awakened with a hum; the powerful biotic shell sealing her off from the outside world, but for those initiated with the practice of wielding such forces, there was a difference between Jack's shield and those normally produced. Smaller separate fields licked from the main forcefield like inverted flame, reaching back for Subject Zero and tethering at specific points along her body.

Through the barrier, Miranda and Jack's eyes met, and for several beats their gazes remained locked until finally the criminal nodded to the cheerleader.

Looking at the other Adepts, Miranda shouted, 'NOW!'

Booms immediately rocked the gathered group, sending waves of sound and might along the circle's curve with each application of the appropriate power combinations. Fields of distorted physics mingled with warped gravity wells in a textbook display of biotic warfare, yet alone in the center of it all stood Subject Zero, unharmed.

As each power 'splashed' against her barrier, one of the inverted flames siphoned off the energy and leeched it into Jack. The more juice she received the whiter her own energy became until the brilliance of it made Miranda squint.

One-by-one the other biotics dropped out of the circle, with exhaustion leaving many too weak to stand. Medical personnel rushed to the Adepts' sides, administering Medi-gel where needed.

Samara stumbled away weakly, leaving only Miranda left to 'feed' Jack's reserves. Sweat soaked the perfect woman's hair, leaving it matted to her cheeks and neck, yet still she called upon her abilities over and over again.

'That's enough,' Jack nodded at Miranda.

But still Lawson's energy fired.

'Hey, cheerleader, I said that's enough! You'll burn yours…!'

'You…must…save him,' Miranda's voice hissed through the tight muscles of her throat. 'He…gave me…a sister…a life.'

'Lawson!', Jack barked. 'MIRANDA!'

'Shepard's given…everything…for me…for us,' Miranda's body began to twitch. 'Time to give…something back.'

'Grab, her!', Jack yelled at the surrounding soldiers. 'For fuck's sake, someone stop her!'

But before anyone could, Miranda's impressive display of biotics ceased, while all along her frame, muscles, pulled by some unknown puppeteer, rolled and fired independently. Lawson's mouth opened and closed yet no sound escaped her lips.

'What have you done?', Jack breathed, as she dropped her barrier and stepped toward her.

Miranda finally found her words.

'…w-what…S-shepard…would…h-have…d-done…'

A beat later and Miranda's knees buckled, sending her rushing toward the broken asphalt, but before she could finish her short flight, the unlikeliest of safety nets halted her descent.

Like a mother with a wayward, wounded child Jack embraced her rival, pulling her close.

'You stupid bitch,' Jack whispered. 'You know we're all just batteries; we have fucking limits. Didn't think I'd have to tell you the same thing I told my stud…'

Subject Zero looked down at the woman in her arms and was met not with the piercing blue eyes of her longtime adversary but with a vacant milky stare.

Lowering them both to the ground, Jack placed Miranda gently beside her, reached over and closed Lawson's sightless eyes.


	13. Devotion & Destiny

(The Present)

For so long he had been kept from her, a 'prisoner' of the very people he served. Questions, condemnation, doubts: some within the Alliance even bandied about terms like 'traitor' and 'spy'; witch-hunters tasked with hobbling their champion…instead of listening to him, heeding the warning uncovered on the Collector ship.

Jack hadn't needed convincing; she'd been there, right at his side, when the half-formed Human Reaper ironically sought their extinction. A suicide mission they'd called it, a suicide mission led by a dead Shepard and supported by a congregation of powerful angels and devils. No one came back through the Omega Relay…they were all passengers of Charon, doomed to a death unknown.

It had been the happiest time of her life.

Throughout the mission, Shepard had come down into her room in the bowels of the Normandy and talked with her for hours. This man, perfect in her eyes, built upon that impossible mantle with his compassion and strength. As her defenses lowered, she had started to see him for what he really, truly was, not a hero or some legendary figure, but just a man searching, as she was, for a place of refuge…and a person with which to share it.

However, as she fought against the course Fate carved for her, Shepard seemed to embrace his path. He moved through his trials with a strength of purpose, paddling with the current, no matter the rapids or falls that such a trajectory would present. His was a life lived with a devotion that no one else, living or dead, had ever housed within a mortal coil.

Devotion to duty.

Devotion to crew.

Devotion to her.

And so, his devotion carried him back to Earth and away from her. Once he had turned himself in, they kept them apart. Her record and their relationship further tarnished his credibility, but Shepard never strayed, never betrayed her to broker his own freedom or restore his standing. His heart and faith remained unwavering; the product of a man that had found his perfect match…his soul's mate, if one believed in such things.

And so she had tried to emulate him by taking the teaching position at Grissom, hoping that in time the military would see her as an asset and not a threat, and maybe, just maybe allow them to be together again.

But that plan had been torn asunder the day the Reapers came.

Since the invasion, blinks and beats had been gifted to them: a collection of minutes at Grissom, a few hours on the Citadel, but those magical nights in the tunnels aboard the Normandy had not been repeated…their History, and the happiness it had held, was just that.

But now, with Fate again tracking their path, they had been granted one last moment.

'jack'

All the debris vanished into the night, propelled by the might of a hundred biotics and the love of one woman.

'SHEPARD!', she screamed tears streaming down her face and mixing with the blood flowing from her nose.

Again the pain and spasms fought to take control of her body, but this time, with her goal in sight, Jack bested them with ease. In seconds, she was by his side cradling his shattered body, just as she had Miranda's minutes earlier. Burns marred his handsome features and blackened the flesh of his hands and arms. Vicious bruises and deep lacerations ran along his left leg, where his armor had broken away and revealed the very flesh it had been forged to protect. Twitches and spasms pulled at his torn muscles, making him bow and bend in her arms.

'GARRUS!', Jack screamed without looking away. 'GARRUS! THE MEDI-GEL, QUICK!'

'jack,' Shepard's cracked lips parted wide enough to repeat her name.

'I'm here,' she stroked his stubbled cheek careful not to touch one of his injuries. 'I'm here…I found you…I found you.'

The dogtags in his hand slipped to dangle from the chain still wrapped around his wrist, and with his fingers free, the burnt digits reached up until he cradled her cheek.

'knew…youu…would…never…a…d-doubt'

'Goddammit, Shepard!', she snapped with a voice lacking any animosity. 'Why didn't you wait!? I was coming. I could've stopped all of this from happening!'

Shepard blinked slowly, as if even that small movement brought intense pain.

'nothing…can…s-stop…what needs…to happen…not you…not me'

Her tears dropped against his cheeks, soothing spots of cold among the clusters of heat and pain.

'Then why didn't you let me fall with you? I won't go back to being alone, Shepard…I…can't.'

'one…of us…has…to make…it', he choked out the statement with as much power as his shattered body would allow.

Three more tears fell, as Jack smiled and nodded.

'One of us will, I made sure of it. All we have to do is finish this…you and me.'

'just…like…old times'

Shepard tried to sit up and draw closer to her but his body wouldn't allow it. Instead Jack bent into him, until their foreheads rested against each other.

'normandy,' Shepard whispered. 'when you…were there…happiest…time of…my life.'

'Mine too,' Jack breathed around the sobs threatening her voice.

'when…this is…over…meet me…back there…in…your old…room.'

'Its a date,' Jack smiled.

Shepard's eyes pulsed in and out of focus…he was fading.

'You're hurt,' he moved to wipe away the flow of blood that trickled from her ear.

'Nothing I can't handle,' again she smiled.

Slowly, Shepard's gaze started to droop and his lids close.

Moving her hands to cup his face, she stared into his eyes, willing him to stay with her…commanding him to live.

'Look at me, Shepard! LOOK at me!'

Shepard's eyes widened as he fought to remain in her arms.

Never taking her eyes off of him, Jack screamed.

'GARRUS! HURRY!'

Jack wept freely now, realizing that no matter what, these were to be their last moments together.

'Why do you have to be so goddamned 'good'?'

Shepard smiled.

'I'm…not…you make…me want to…be better…man.'

'You look like shit, partner,' came a voice from behind Jack.

Quickly kneeling down, Garrus Vakarian, his armor and visible flesh battered but not broken, quickly retrieved the ampules of Medi-Gel from various compartments.

With her eyes still locked on Shepard's, Jack heard the sound of her destiny invade the scene.

A great moan like the call of some whale of the deep echoed over the three of them, warning them that whatever tribulations faced to this point had been nothing more than advance scouts for Death itself.

Again the cry sounded, followed by a great rumble…as if something very large were walking toward them.

Tears fell from both Shepard and Jack's eyes and neither could speak beyond the emotion of the minute.

With yet another 'moan', Jack forced her eyes from his…and looked toward the great beam. The massive silhouettes of the three Reapers were moving…toward their position.

'Stop the Medi-Gel, Garrus,' Jack ordered. 'Get the other stuff fired up…now."

No snide remarks or contradicting beliefs came from the Turian, for he too agreed that their seconds had run out. Quickly his hands produced several devices from his storage areas and began attaching them to both he and Shepard.

'Jack…what's going on…what are…you doing?', Shepard asked weakly.

'I've got a plan,' Jack looked back at him. 'This is why you chose me…I'll get you the rest of the way.'

'I didn't…choose you…Jack,' his words held a pain and promise far removed from the ravages visited upon his flesh.

'From the moment…you woke up…I knew…I loved you…don't know how…but I knew.'

'I did too,' she whispered. 'I love you.'

'You,' Jack's voice broke, while her tears ran with her blood, 'freed me….from so much more than that prison.'

Pulling her eyes from him, she returned her attention to the Reapers, and with a sadness so profound even the stoic Turian closed his eyes, Jack whispered.

'I've got to go…it's 'destiny-time'.'


	14. Valuables

(13 minutes ago)

More a product of War than Nature, the wind that touched her face carried both the scent of the city and the ash it had become, but more importantly it squalled from the direction of the great beam, the direction along which Shepard had fallen.

Her students' sacrifice.

Miranda's death.

Her own…loss.

Jack needed to burn herself clean of those pains. To follow the wind, get to Shepard, and finish this, she would need to be the fastest she'd ever been, the strongest she'd ever been, and the best she ever would be. Encumbrances could not hide in the hollows of her heart; she had to become what Cerberus had always wanted, a weapon fueled on rage.

Still…her view of the burning beam and the titanic Reapers flanking it could not eclipse the image playing over and over in her mind, the image of a small hand lovingly squeezing both her's and Shepard's.

_'Isn't like she'll ever have kids.'_

Tears ran anew down her cheeks.

'Ah, sir…er, ma'am, did you…um…did you hear me?', a high, careful voice asked from over her shoulder.

Leaving the tears where they fell, Jack turned to address her companion.

'And that will work?', Jack questioned the slight Salarian in front of her.

'Yes,' he said with a certainty that did not extend to his eyes. 'Once the image is mapped it won't be effected by any additional, umm, _modifications_ to the host. If I knew exactly what you were planning, I could better assi…ma'am, are you o…?'

'You don't sound too goddamned sure of yourself,' she snapped, ignoring his concern.

'Well,' the nervous Salarian stuttered, 'I've never actually done anything like what you're sugg…'

'Then why the fuck are you telling me it will work?!', Jack exploded.

'I-I…read a study once,' the Salarian sheepishly admitted.

'A study?! You are giving me info you gleaned from a fucking textbook!?'

'N-not exactly,' the Salarian raised his hands defensively as if he truly believed Jack was ready to attack. 'It was a field report from one of our more eccentric STG operatives. I believe you knew him…Mordin Solus.'

Instantly Jack's mood changed, and her face calmed.

'Leave the shit and go.'

The Salarian looked as if he misunderstood.

'I…so you…we're all done here then?'

'We are,' Jack snapped and turned her back on him.

A few seconds slipped by, as Jack waited for the Salarian's footsteps to disappear.

Looking at what the young operative had left with her, Subject Zero spoke even though she appeared alone,

'You're not as sneaky as you think you are, Goto.'

Right beside Jack, the air distorted until a small hooded figure in black materialized. Ignoring the obvious jab at her abilities, Kasumi Goto instead answered the question Jack had posed to the Salarian.

'Mordin was right, It will work.'

'You sure?' Jack asked skeptically.

'Absolutely, just be sure to allow the Salarian's device to do its mapping before you activate my cloak.'

Kasumi's statement brought a slight grin to Jack's face.

'Didn't even have to ask you for it; charity from a thief, it must be the end of days.'

'I am not giving my tech to you, Jack, I am giving it to you and Shepard…big difference. And honestly I don't see it as a charitable act as much as it is a business investment. If you two fail, my bottom line is sure to suffer.'

'So that's what you get out of this, Goto? Profit?'

'Lets just say I find myself aiding you and Shepard to protect my…_valuables_,' the thief's barely visible chin trembled slightly in the deep shadows of her hood.

'I fear,' Kasumi continued, 'that they are all rather irreplaceable.'

Miranda's sightless eyes flashed through her thoughts but was quickly banished.

'That they are,' agreed Jack. 'Now, tell me how to use this thing.'

(8 minutes ago)

'That's why I need one person to come with me,' Jack addressed the gathered sons and daughters of the Normandy.

'Shepard took his soldier in Vega and a machine in EDI. Whether subconsciously or deliberately, he picked the two that would follow his directions…and the two he felt best suited for a suicide run. You could even argue that in EDI, he selected a being incapable of 'death'...well, 'death' in the normal sense.'

'That's not necessarily true,' Tali interjected. 'With the Reapers jamming transmissions, EDI wouldn't be able to link with the Normandy. Her immortality would depend on how much of 'herself' she had placed in her mobile platform.'

'My point is that was Shepard's mistake. Sometimes you don't just risk something you can afford to lose…you must risk something you can't.'

Jack turned and cocked her head at Garrus Vakarian,

'You up for a stroll, Archangel?'

Whether a product of his species or simply a universally brilliant poker face, Garrus did not seemed the least bit surprised by her decision.

'If he's alive, and that's a mighty big 'if', how do you know I won't throw him over my shoulder, bring him back here, and tell you both to go to hell? I don't take orders from you, Jack, and Shepard, if he lives, won't be in any shape to stop me.'

'I don't know,' Jack answered honestly.

'Then why risk it?', the ex-lawman pressed.

'Because when the moment hits, I trust you more than anyone else to see this through,' she said softly.

'Again…'why'?', Garrus's voice lowered as well.

'Two reasons, Vakarain; one, you stood with me and Shepard on the Collector Ship…you know what's at stake, what Shepard is trying to do.'

Garrus snorted,

'Despite the frequent use of the term 'suicide mission' that little soiree made sense. This seems pointless, and I think Shepard knew that…that's why he left us behind. You haven't convinced me, Jack.'

Subject Zero stepped closer to the Turian, and for the briefest of spans, her features softened,

'I'm not done, Vakarian.'

'Fine,' Garrus snapped, 'what's your other reason for trusting me to dance to your tune?'

'You love Shepard just as much as I do.'

This time Garrus's mandibles twitched, his emotionless mask collapsed, and the soldier stood before his comrades defenseless. For several beats, the Turian simply stared at Jack, measuring a woman he had known both 'in' battle and out. Finally, he gifted her with a nearly imperceptible nod, the largest showing of respect he had ever publicly given the ex-con.

Grabbing his sniper rifle, he moved to the bulwark leading to the battlefield and shouted without turning.

'Well, quit wasting my time then. I always wanted to see London.'

Jack allowed herself a slight grin, before turning to the rest of the gathered group.

For several seconds she simply stared at the gathered heroes; finally, she spoke, her voice a strange mixture of plea and politic,

'Don't even think about it. I know you assholes. When the shit starts slinging sideways, you'll want to jump in face first.'

Subject Zero's eyes hardened,

'Don't. For this to go right, we all have to stick to the plan, and you all need to play your parts…back here. If we fail, it will be up to you.'

Several of the group moved to argue, but as had been stated and restated, Time was an enemy even greater than the Reapers, so no contradicting voices sounded.

Jack's gaze travelled over the bulk of the group toward the shadows in the rear. There her eyes picked out those of Liara T'Soni's and together the two shared their last moment. The human's face told many things but the loudest and surest of those tales rested on one absolute…

_'Tell our story' _

Liara nodded, and another tear slipped down her cheek.

Spinning on the heel of her combat boot, Jack joined Garrus at the bulwark and without further pomp or circumstance, she leapt over.


	15. Hurry

(The Present)

Absent the traditional 'fourth', the three Reapers, like the horsemen of the Apocalypse, spread out across the shattered street, guarding its intersection with the beam. Each step of their massive legs shook the very history of London, cascading tremors into the past and threatening the very memory of the fabled city. The three titans, Goliaths all, represented the focused annihilation of the threat the races faced. Sovereign Class, massive, capable of decimating armadas and armies.

Death, in point of fact, and far greater and darker than anything St. Peter foretold in Revelations.

However, once the Reapers cleared the broken buildings and the street splayed before them, no armadas or armies stood against the murderous machines; no great force with numbers infinite enough to give them pause or powerful enough to slow them. When Harbinger and its companions took to the lane, they faced not another suicidal charge of desperate soldiers or a phalanx of craft descending from the heavens; instead, they found just two heroes in defiance, two champions standing together, two lovers bent on felling the invincible.

Jack and Shepard stood alone against the end of the universe.

Harbinger's voice seemed to come from everywhere, rumbling over the stones of London and vibrating the bones and brains of the two heroes.

'SHEPARD, YOUR GIFT IS AT HAND.'

However, before the bestowing of any presents could proceed, an exchange of pleasantries was required.

'Fuck you!'

The base insult came not from Shepard but from the singular being standing in front of him, protecting the severely wounded man with her own body. With power surging around her upheld, tattooed arm, Jack's biotic bubble flared in a brilliant white might; an energy mixed and measured with the love and faith of students, comrades and friends. Inside the bubble and partially hidden by a toppled column, Shepard wobbled awkwardly, unable to keep his balance but standing none-the-less. His head slumped in pain but rose to regard the nightmares before them.

'SHEPARD'S CONSORT, YOUR WORDS ARE POINTLESS. THESE WORLDS WILL BE OUR LABORATORIES. THIS CYCLE IS OVER.'

A sneer crawled across Jack's face, while her other hand slowly rose, the middle finger extended upward.

'Prove it.'

Jack's words rang with a strength and command few could generate in the face of likely oblivion, yet her voice did not falter and was not reinforced with an unfelt bravado. She meant every word, and nary a syllable left her tongue that wasn't wholly absent fear.

'YOUR SHEPARD IS HOBBLED. YOU WILL SUCCUMB AND ASCEND.'

'Run!' Shepard screamed in her ear, 'You have to run! Get out of there! Live!'

Jack drew herself tall and with hushed whispers responded to the pleas of her love,

''Afraid I can't do that.'

While they spoke, great shielded panels retracted along the teardrop bodies of the Reapers, revealing the charged and brilliant red 'eyes' of the vast creatures.

'No, Jack,' Shepard's voice cracked. 'They're readying to fire…please…just run.'

A tear, created not out of fear or self-preservation but birthed from the anguish in the man's voice, rolled down her cheek,

'That's your part of the plan. This is mine. I'll meet you back at the Normandy…don't be late.'

'No, Jack! Don't!', Shepard's seemingly infinite resolve began to crumble.

Jack looked over her shoulder, where 'Shepard' seemed to stumble while standing still.

'With all my heart, with all my love, I won't let them get you.'

Before any response could be given, the concentrated Hellfire of the three Reapers blasted against Jack, obliterating her from view.

'JAAACK!', a grief stricken Shepard wailed.

But he did not scream alone. In a city where Bards had bandied phrases of love and loss and Blitzkriegs had made memory of man, no sound, based in heart or hate, ever matched the wail of the being known as Jack.

Harbinger's beam melted the flagstones around her into superheated clouds, turned sand particles into razors of glass, and robbed the oxygen from the very air, yet in the middle of it, like a bit of diamond, stood the biotic field of Subject Zero. Blood poured from her nose and ears, as all that she had been and all she would ever be fed her defenses.

Like an aged and fallen boxer, Jack absorbed the might of the Reapers and was slammed to her knees with enough force to split and bloody each. However, her hand remained over her head, and her biotic shell held. The child robbed from her mother, and made a monster by monsters, fought with a strength so unique even the eternal Reapers recognized it.

Over and over, the death machines blasted her with their beams of strapped and honed purpose, and over and over, Jack took their shots…and held.

In her ear, Shepard screamed.

No longer did he plead with her to run; he knew that she wouldn't. Now his words gave her what she needed, what they both needed.

'Hold, Jack! Hold! Those bastards can't beat you!'

With her whole body shaking in spasms and her throat raw with howls of pain, she couldn't immediately respond but Jack focused on his words and with a might equal to the Reapers own…she held fast. Whether appalled by her defiance or embarrassed by their own failure to snuff out two insignificant humans, the massive entities redoubled their efforts, splashing a near constant wave of murder against Jack's barrier.

'garrus,' her choked voice gasped. 'Hurry.'

'We've got to do something!', Shepard screamed. 'Goddammitt, Garrus, let me g…!'

'Hurry,' Jack whispered again.

'Jack!,' Shepard screamed in her ear. 'Jack! I'm comi…'

'No,' she breathed, while the scarlet energy battered her barrier. 'Garrus…following…the plan…now…please, hurry.'

'JAAACK!', Shepard cried, his voice and heart broken. 'Let me go, Garrus! My place is with her! Let me g…'

The Turian's voice, nearly as heartbroken as Shepard's, materialized in Jack's ear.

'Don't let it be for nothing, my friend.'

'No,' Shepard's voice continued to debate but his shattered soul knew the truth in Vakarian's words.

Again, Jack's weak pleas manifested in one whispered word.

'Hurry.'

With the heat and weight of the assault, Jack's arm slowly started to fall and the shell around her bowed and wobbled. Unable to even lift her head, her eyes fell to the ground beneath her…where once more her shattered and distorted reflection met her gaze from inside the fused and mirrored ground.

Again she stared at the broken woman, the creature shattered in Teltin, the creature that had never known Shepard or his love.

Eerily, her blood again dripped against her image, as it had done earlier. Shepard's cries slipped into the background, a white noise of unfettered love. Spittle and sweat joined the blood beneath her, abandoning the sinking ship.

'THIS ENDS NOW, CHILD'

Harbinger's words like all of the engine's prophesies were meant to frighten and beat the listener into submission with a lethal combination of despair and certainty. Cycles upon cycles proved its voice as potent a weapon as the others at its disposal, and it may have had the same desired effect on Jack had Harbinger been wiser with its word selection.

_THIS ENDS NOW…CHILD_

_ CHILD_

_CHILD_

_'Isn't like she'll ever have kids.'_

_'What you have done…is impossible.'_

_'Tell our story.'_

In her mind Jack again saw the tiny hand wrap and curl around her's and Shepard's.

_'So this is my 'protection'?'_

_'Remember it all.'_

_'Tell our story.'_

Jack's arm lifted higher and her biotic shell rounded and reformed.

_'one…of us…has…to make…it'_

_'One of us will, I made sure of it.'_

_'Tell our story.'_

Shepard's voice, pulled from the depths, reformed in a hushed whisper, one filled with equal parts pride, awe and love.

'My God, Garrus…look.'

The Turian's voice bled into her ear, his smirk a part of the statement's sound,

'Go get 'em, Jack.'

_'Tell our story.'_

Where moments before Subject Zero had been crumpled on the ground, Jack now stood against the Reaper onslaught.

Above her biotic shell, the red hellish energy disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, causing Jack to stumble with the relief of pressure against her field. Locking 'eyes' with Harbinger, she ran the back of her hand under her nose in a feeble attempt to wipe away the river of blood dripping from her chin. Spitting out a mouthful of the fluid, Jack grinned; her teeth the same color as the Reapers' beams.

No longer whispered, she repeated her earlier command.

'Hurry.'

Despite her Herculean reserves and her defiant display, Jack knew her defenses had precious little left.

She need to buy more time…she needed her own show of force.

'I'll give you as long as I can,' she panted.

'I love you, Jack,' Shepard choked. 'For as long as my heart beats…its beats for you.'

'YOUR DISPLAY, LIKE YOUR SPECIES, WILL FADE, MORTAL'

Harbinger's interruption reaped the moment, a sickle sharpened for happiness instead of wheat.

Jack narrowed her gaze at the nightmare, but where even the bravest of souls would feel the grip of dread, she held only two things in her heart: love and rage, the deadliest of human emotions when wielded in tandem and with purpose.

'You think yourself immortal?', she spat, 'We'll see, fucker.'

With a speed that shocked even her, Jack's amped biotics turned from defensive to offensive. For a beat, her bubble disappeared, and in its place a thin beam of pure white-hot rage razored from her hand into the London air until it knifed into the smallest of the Reapers. Tethered to Jack's hand like some ancient whaling harpoon, the 'rope' of biotic energy pulsed with light and power, as she sent specialized fields through the line...and into her enemy. The great machine listed first left than right, as several, rapid 'popping' sounds echoed from deep inside it. Around its 'eye', its armored shell cracked, allowing the last of Jack's biotic flares to blister forth from the wound.

Refuting Harbinger's earlier claim of immortality, the ground rushed up and met the smaller Reaper, as the 'immortal' giant simply ceased to be.

Despite having used the majority of her housed energy in the attack, she allowed more of her white-hot energy to linger, hoping to bluff her enemies into thinking she could duplicate the feat...which she could not.

Raw power flared from Jack making her nova against the backdrop of fallen fiends and heroes. Driven by a force unknown and underestimated by the Reapers, the super-human woman recreated her defensive shell, as if daring the surviving Reapers to strike.

Jack's skull shook with the power of Harbinger's response,

'PREPARE FOR ANNIHILATION.'

Though nothing had changed in the Reaper's inflection or delivery, she felt its words seemed...toothless.

With her macabre smile, Jack bellowed at Harbinger…and unlike eons come and gone, it was the hunted and not the hunter's words that elicited fear.

'I'LL KILL YOU ALL!'


	16. Abracadabra

(The Present)

Harbinger's retaliation had been swift, and now…her world was fire.

'YOU BELIEVE YOURSELF 'SPECIAL''

While the machine's voice boomed in her ears, pain seeped into every atom and threatened to steal her mind from the loose sanity it still held.

'WORTHY TO STAND AGAINST US'

All along her naked torso, her muscles started to wither and her thin flesh pulled tighter across her pronounced bones.

'A WITCH WIELDING MAGIC'

She held nothing back, everything went into her defenses…all to buy more time for the man she loved.

'OUR EQUAL'

But…the pain.

'YOU ARE WRONG'

Blisters rose along her upraised arm, as the two remaining Reapers threw their entire might against her biotic barrier. Jack knew there would be no rally this time, no stand against the machines. Her power was fading fast, and all she could do was hold on a little longer.

She dared a glance behind her, where 'Shepard', safe inside her bubble, jerked awkwardly, as if he were moving while standing still.

As the pain wracked her body and her biotics drained her very essence for power, Jack's eyes cradled 'Shepard' and dreamed of an existence that would never be.

For the last time in her life, her chin trembled and Jack wept freely; her stolen future, a lost treasure, infinitely more painful than the blasts beating her body and infinitely more precious than the blood running from her nose, eyes and ears. After a life spent shackled, abused and praying for death, the only thing she desired now…was to live.

Jack wanted more minutes, more months; she wanted a forever with Shepard, a forever full of all the things absent from her early years. Joy, loyalty, quiet spans alone with him; in short, she craved happy memories.

Greed joined her pain and rage.

She wanted millions of new moments, enough to force the evil remembrances from her mind; enough so that in the years to come, none of the bad would remain and all her recollections would be housed and formed from happiness and hope.

'I don't…I want…more…time,' she whispered around her grief.

'Jack,' Shepard spoke in her ear and returned her cry of despair with an acknowledgment of his own. 'So do I…with all my heart, so do I.'

'Don't…want…to leave…you,' she whispered.

'Then don't, Jack,' Shepard's voice trembled. 'Hang on…wait for me.'

Suddenly spasms gripped Jack's throat and she vomited a great gush of blood. Completely absent her control, her blasted body collapsed to the ground…yet even while lying on her back, her right arm remained raised, warding off the Reaper's power.

'Jack!', Shepard screamed.

Tears ran down her face, gathered around the comm transmitter in her ear and dropped to the glassy ground.

'Thanks…Shepard…for a…life…worth living.'

Jack's shell shattered…her barrier fell.

But death did not follow.

Silence hung in the Isle's air; the Reapers weapons dark and quiet.

'SHEPARD, YOUR WITCH IS BEATEN'

Slowly Jack's mind stepped away from the abyss, and with each passing second not spent fueling her biotics, her strength creeped back.

'YOUR ASCENSION IS AT HAND'

'They…want…you…alive,' Jack whispered.

Shepard's voice crackled in her ear,

'No, they want us _both. _You've impressed them. They want to study you. He thinks you're beaten, Jack. Keep him talking, use the seconds he gives you, and make him pay for them…make…him…pay. We're almost there.'

Somehow, whether with the invisible support of Shepard, the ghost of a mother long-gone, or even the will of a cheerleader recently lost, Jack pulled herself up…and stood. An amalgamation of injury, famine and mortis, she seemed little more than an animated corpse, but with eyes still bright, she faced Harbinger, and she challenged a 'god'.

'You can't…figure it out, can you?', Jack's clenched jaw distorted the statement but not enough so that it failed to reach the titanic machine's comprehension.

'NOTHING IS BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING'

It's penchant for bombast doused, at least temporarily, she continued.

'You don't have…a formula…or a working theory… for _Destiny_, do you? There isn't a corner…in that 'vast' and 'awesome' memory…that takes into account Fate.'

'NEITHER IS THERE ROOM DEVOTED TO THE FALACY OF HOPE, WHICH, AS YOU CAN NOW ATTEST, IS AS ETHEREAL AND ILLOGICAL AS DESTINY'

'For all your…grandstanding…you're still…just a fucking machine…you need everything to be about the numbers. Alright, so tell me this…what are the odds?'

Harbinger's silence made her nod because Jack had correctly assumed that the machine was too 'proud' to ask any question of a lesser being.

So she answered it anyway.

'The odds…of what, you say?'

She had Harbinger's attention, and every second she did bought Shepard more time.

Jack smiled and a tear rolled down her cheek, slipped down her split lip and for a moment swiped a path of white along her bloodied teeth.

'The odds…of the only two creatures in the universe capable of stopping you…finding each other.'

'YOUR DELUSION IS AT PLAY, WITCH, NOT DESTINY'

Never taking her eyes from Harbinger, she continued; her words firmer as her strength returned,

'I know you can't help yourself from…'running the numbers' even if you think them pointless…you're just a fucking machine…you can't shut off a 'problem'…can you?'

Jack knew she was right; knew that Harbinger couldn't change what it was. If it heard a problem, one based in the mathematics of probability, it couldn't help itself. It would answer.

And in that answer…Harbinger might finally understand.

'What are the odds that the two beings uniquely equipped to champion organics join together? A million-to-one?'

She spit a mouthful of blood to the ground.

'What are the odds that these two organisms are born and age to their primes, just in time for your _reaping_? A billion-to-one?

Jack's hands clenched into fists and released, as her muscles slowly came back online.

'What are the odds that these two creatures travel in completely unrelated sectors of the universe yet are drawn together, battle their way through the armies and tests you've designed, reached the very 'off switch' that you have fought millennia to protect, and in so doing come farther than any other cycle? A trillion-to-one?'

She stumbled a bit as the numbness receded and the fantastic pain return to her legs.

'What are the odds that these two fall in love and willingly sacrifice that love to stop you!'

'TELL ME, FUCKER! What…are…the…odds?'

Jack shook in pain and dying rage,

'All of your might, all of your planning, all of your knowledge, all of your 'facts', everything you think you know…'

'You…are…wrong,' Jack's lips rose in a smile around her bloody teeth.

'AND YET YOU AND SHEPARD WILL GO NO FURTHER'

Jack started to laugh.

'YOUR ASCENSION IS AT HAND'

From the transmitter in her ear, Shepard spoke,

'We're here. Meet you at the Normandy.'

Jack's mocking laughter ceased its assault of Harbinger, and in its place, her words attacked the Reaper,

'You called me a witch. I'm not…I'm a magician. Do you know the difference?'

Again the ancient machine's silence made her happy despite the agony gripping her,

'A magician has no real power. Their 'magic' comes not from some malleable, mystic force but from their ability to distract their audience. With flourish and fancy, or in this case, talking to a pompous, fucking-blowhard-robot while it tries to kill you…the magician draws the audience's attention away from where the trick is being performed.'

Stepping back to the 'Shepard' behind her, Jack used her free hand…and punched her fist through 'his' chest.

The Salarian's Decoy wobbled a bit but the perfect hologram quickly reformed, leaving a very, very convincing 'Shepard' behind.

If the situation hadn't been so dire, Jack would've started laughing again, as Harbinger's massive 'head' rocked back in a comic expression of 'shock'.

Directly beside the beam, Shepard materialized, as he switched off Kasumi's tactical cloak, and with one last look back across the battlefield at Jack, the universe's last chance dove into the beam.

Harbinger's 'eye' moved from the beam and seemed to 'look' back at Jack with a mixture of hatred…and respect.

With one last smile, the witch bowed,

'What are the odds? Abracadabra, mother fucker.'


	17. Leash

(The Recent Past)

'C'mon, teach, tell us,' the young woman clasped her hands in front of her begging with the subtlety and humility of a poorly trained thespian.

'Yeah, you can't have that story floating around while we're trying to concentrate. We need closure,' the young man coyly added.

'You are both dangerously full of shit,' Jack barked in mock irritation.

A chorus of pleas erupted from the other students flanking the young woman, Ensign Rodriguez and the boy, Jason Prangley. Each one concocted a more desperate reason as to why Jack should reward them with the tale of perhaps her most notorious exploit. Opting for the full frontal assault, her Grissom Academy students barraged her from every angle and avenue.

'Personally, I think it would help my confidence,' another girl added.

'I feel that my sleep patterns could finally normalize,' said someone in the back.

'You've always told us that the more we know the scarier we'll be,' a smaller boy assured her.

'You look really pretty today, Teach,' milked a dark haired girl.

Flaring her biotics violently produced the desired effect, silence.

'Correction,' Jack rolled her eyes, 'You are _all_ dangerously full of shit.'

'Just tell us, Ms. Nought, please,' Prangley begged around a half smile.

'Please,' Rodriguez batted her eyelashes.

Jack's gaze narrowed as it examined each of her students with the measured duty of a perfectionist. For several seconds the youth before her shifted on scales only she could see until finally, the weighing and measuring concluded, Subject Zero spoke.

'Rodriguez, what was today's lesson?'

The Ensign's mouth opened and closed, as the younger woman thought about challenging her instructor, but instead selected the wiser option and answered Jack.

'The combat application of kinetic and telekinetic abilities, and the varied combinations of gravity in these raised and lowered mass effect fields,' Rodriguez parroted robotically.

Jack smiled,

'Now, instead of all of that text book horseshit, tell me…what was today's lesson?'

Jason Prangley returned Jack's smile,

'Size don't matter.'

Subject Zero nodded,

'Just this one time, Prangley, but why doesn't it?'

The normally accomplished student paused, struggling and failing to find the correct response.

Bailing him out, Jack answered her own question,

'Because with the right field projections and combos, you can lift, slam, lash, or push anyone in the universe. Mass, gravity, none of it means a baker's fuck to people like us. We make the rules, not Mother Nature, so never think something is too big to…_redirect_.'

Again she paused for several seconds, before quickly turning on her heel and walking away; informally dismissing her students.

On her fifth step, Rodriguez's yell reached her ears,

'Wait! You didn't tell us how you crashed the space station into the moon!'

Jack kept walking but was rewarded with Jason Prangley's answer to his classmate,

'Yes she did.'

(The Present)

Harbinger 'crouched' down readying to blast into orbit and attack the Crucible directly in an effort to stop Shepard. With the rest of the organic armada engaged with the vast Reaper horde, no one would be able to defend the space station from an earth oriented assault.

If allowed to reach Shepard, the Reaper Chieftain would certainly kill its wounded adversary and crush any hope for the organics.

Harbinger sprang into the air.

A brilliant white line of biotic energy blistered the night.

Harbinger came to a complete stop before being jerked down.

'Get back here, fucker!', Jack raged at the massive machine.

With a lash of biotics tethered from her clenched fist to one of the Reaper's tentacle appendages, Subject Zero recreated the laws of nature and anchored the devil to the dirt, preventing the fiend from flight.

She knew the only way to save Shepard was to continue to occupy the Reapers. Victory, in the traditional sense, was not an option, but belaying Harbinger for even a few beats constituted the next best thing.

With a determination undefinable by equation or logic, the Witch wrestled the Giant.

Harbinger fought to escape the leash, but at each turn it was met with fields lowering or raising its mass, keeping it off balance and unable to fly…unable to flee. Several times it tried to simply accelerate but because of the instability Jack created, the great machine ended up smashing into a building or reeling toward the ground. The largest sailor ever granted leave in London, Harbinger stumbled and shook like one drunk on more than just power.

Shepard was its task; Harbinger needed to meet its nemesis in space to conclude this conflict and end the anomalies of this cycle once and for all. But its desired bout wasn't meant to be; instead of a battle in the stars, the Reaper remained earthbound and waged war with the unlikeliest of enemies, a witch wielding science.

Despite the momentary success of Subject Zero, the battle was neither one-sided or cheap. Jack had little left, and what she had was only a delaying tactic and not a stratagem for victory. She just needed to hold.

The blood running from the corners of her eyes made a macabre lens for the scene, tinting the world red, darkening her already dimming sight. Red, one of the colors of sunset, and an unnecessary reminder that the end was near.

Yet still she raged.

DESTROY HER

Somehow the order of her execution made her happy. Despite all of its assurances otherwise, Harbinger was frightened: not for its species, not for fear of failure. No, self-preservation drove the ancient machine; otherwise it would have ordered the other Reaper into orbit to stop Shepard.

Harbinger feared death.

Harbinger feared her.

KILL THE WITCH

'That's right,' Jack whispered to Harbinger, 'In the end, you're just a fucking coward.'

KILL THE WITCH

The other Reaper turned its great 'eye' on Jack, and tethered as she was to Harbinger, she would be unable to raise a shield to defend herself. In seconds it would be over.

'Shepard, they're coming!', she wailed in agony, praying somehow her voice would reach his ears.

'They're coming!'

KILL THE WITCH

'FUCK YOU!', Jack raged, as the second Reaper fired.

Unexpectedly, hexagonal plates of pure energy materialized around her like the great interlocking shells of some mutated, holographic tortoise, splashing the red energy up and away from her. Large bipedal robots, dozens of them, surrounded her exposed flank and as one turned their heads toward the attacking machine.

As soon as the great beam relented, Jack's large robotic saviors began firing on the Reapers.

Massive explosions from more conventional weaponry punched at the smaller titan's armor, prompting Jack to dare a glance away from Harbinger.

'Legion?', she whispered to the hulking Geth closest to her.

Instead of answering, the robotic life-form rallied its kin and charged the smaller Reaper.

To Jack, the normally tinny, synthesized voice seemed…alive,

'For the Shepard! For the Creator!'

'For your souls!', a shout came from a pile of debris to Jack's right.

Resplendent in her enviro-suit, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy stood high upon the mound of rubble; her arm pointed forward at the smaller Reaper.

'CHARGE!'

Jack shook her head,

'No…no…don't.'

From behind her, the heroes of all the worlds, comrades-in-arms, the sons and daughters of the Normandy…the brothers and sisters of she and Shepard exploded around her position and threw themselves at the monstrous machine.

Of operas sung and seen, the one playing before Jack's dying eyes burned brighter than any ever performed.

All around her, the only family she had ever known rushed to her defense…and their deaths.

Fighting side-by-side and laughing, Zaeed, Jessie clutched in his scarred grip, and Grunt raced gallantly with the Geth toward the Reapers, knowing they sped not to victory but oblivion assured.

'Go back,' Jack begged, tears streaming down her cheeks. 'Please…go…back.'

To the left, Samara, weapon in hand and Code in heart, led the exhausted, empty biotics in a flanking maneuver. Some of them wielded only sticks, yet on they charged.

'No!', Jack screamed.

Ashley and a very visible Kasumi Goto pressed the right flank, point guards for all that remained of Hammer: techs, engineers, medics.

'Please,' Jack begged.

'Down here, asshole!', Garrus Vakarian bellowed up at the Reaper, as he deactivated the Salarian's tactical cloak and materialized by one of the machine's massive legs.

'Garrus! RUN!', she wailed.

Suddenly a great roar split the sky above and behind her, and a moment later, The Normandy blasted down the lane; an angel on high piloted by a Joker that had lost his laughter.

Everywhere, Turians, Asari, Krogan, Quarians, Salarians, Humans, the very last of the armies of the organics charged.

Panic gripped her soul and Jack jerked her head back toward the former Alliance line, hoping, praying that not 'everyone' had attacked.

She was rewarded immediately with the most beautiful image she had ever seen. Much like her own biotic bubble had floated among the Reapers rays, Liara T'Soni's shown like a lighthouse beacon atop the highest structure left standing; one far removed from the conflict.

Jack couldn't see the Asari but she knew Liara had made herself visible to relay her position, not to the Reapers but to her. Liara and her cargo were safe.

The smaller Reaper was engaged, her friends had bought her enough time…time left for one last dance.

Harbinger's voice exploded in her skull,

SHEPARD YOU WILL ASCEND

'You…won't…get him,' Jack strained to slip the words by her clenched jaw.

ANOMALY

Crushed by pain as she was, it took Jack a moment to realize Harbinger wasn't talking to her anymore…it was talking to itself.

INCALCULABLE

'That's right, fucker,' she hissed, 'That's right.'

With the very last of herself, Jack drew upon the final wisp of her reserves, power that she shouldn't have had, power that had come from the sacrifice of her most accomplished adversary. The criminal, fueled by the power of a dead cheerleader, modified the lash line with unbalanced fields in a godlike display of biotic precision, and like a decathlete of ancient worlds, Jack began to slowly 'swing' Harbinger. Centimeters bled into meters, meters turned to much, much more until the massive machine traveled in a lazy arc, an arc that intersected with the brilliant beam.

The Reaper Chieftain's great energy weapon fired red blasts erratically into the night, the desperate signal flares of a keened ship.

In its last moments, Harbinger proved itself no higher than the 'insignificant organics' it had sought to exterminate. It fought for its 'life'. The Reaper rocked and rolled against the gravity wells and fields that forced its flight, but despite all of its herculean power, all of its infinite experience and knowledge, Harbinger hadn't prepared for the one thing that could defeat it.

Love.

Less than twenty meters from the beam, Harbinger uttered its last word.

IMPOSSIBLE

Jack choked out a chuckle,

'Fucker, you haven't seen anything yet.'

Harbinger touched the beam.

Power incalculable surged through the machine, flaming every point of the Reaper.

Energy backlashed through the tether to its source.

Jack knew no more.

(To be concluded)


	18. Victory

(The Present)

'Jack?'

From his lips, her name travelled through the dark twilight, and born as it was with the strength of love, it led her back, if only for a few moments more.

'Jack?'

One of her eyes fluttered open. What happened to the other, she knew not.

'Jack, can you hear me?'

The beam still stretched into the sky, but around its base the smoking husk of Harbinger had become a part of the London skyline. Just beyond her dimming senses, she thought she heard cheering. Exhaustion, unlike any she had ever known, pulled her toward serenity, but his voice…his voice let her linger.

'Jack?'

'Shepard?', she whispered, dragging the single word for several beats longer than necessary.

'I can…hear you. Are you okay?', his words carried their own stalemate of suffering and fatigue.

Unable to move because of her shattered spine, Jack rolled her eye to the left, where the Salarian's decoy still displayed Shepard resting right beside her.

Though separated by several hundred miles, the lovers sat together on the battlefield.

'I can see you,' Jack answered though her words took a while to pull from her throat; a faint breeze, once a gale, blown from a far off place.

'The beam,' Shepard surmised. 'It must be…carrying our comms.'

Shepard's hologram looked around, as if trying to find her,

'Where are you, Jack?'

''Beside you,' a tear rolled from her eye. 'Always.'

Somehow despite not actually knowing her position, Shepard's eyes met her's and his cracked and broken face smiled.

'What did you mean earlier? One of us would make it…you'd made sure of it?'

Another tear fell from her eye, pulling more of the light, more of the _life_ from the orb,

'You proved them wrong, Shepard…Cerberus said I'd never have children…but you showed those sons-a-bitches…you made a 'mommy'…out of…their psychopath, their barren experiment, their _Subject Zero_.'

'A child?', Shepard wept.

'A…boy…don't ask me how I know…just do,' Jack's eye clouded. 'Liara…has him…he's safe…'one' of us made it…the very best of us made it…we won, Shepard.'

'Yes,' the hero's face softened in the singular affection reserved only for soul mates. 'We did, Jack. Thanks to you.'

Shepard's face seized in pain and locked his breath inside his throat. Several moments later, he managed a whisper hot with suffering.

'Going to be…little late…getting back to the…Normandy.'

'Me too,' Jack's voice lost even more strength. 'I'm so…tired.'

Shepard's chin trembled and a tear slipped from his eye, travelled down his cheek and danced among the stubble on his face,

'You just…rest, Jack. Just rest. You're relieved…soldier.'

Jack's lid began to flutter,

'Soldiers are pussies.'

Shepard grinned,

'What's that make me?'

'The person…I didn't think…I deserved…the love…of my…life,' Jack breathed in little more than the thought of speech.

Sensing the end, Shepard swallowed his sorrow long enough to send his love on her way,

'With all my heart, I love you, Jack…meet you at the Normandy.'

'Normandy…see you…there.'

For a moment the lovers curled together on the battlefield, side-by-side despite the distance separating their physical forms. Shepard's hologram crumpled in grief.

'Don't go too far, Jack. I'll be along soon.'

Then something unseen drew his attention and his hologram stood, stumbled forward and disappeared.

While in London, the wind, rough with war, blew over the fallen woman; squalling hard, pulling love and memories toward the sky.

Jack rode the wind too, her promise kept, her child safe…her mission done.

(Seven Years Later)

The frosted gust blew, and snow swirled, carrying far more than the frigid breeze and frozen flakes. Mixed among the unique ice crystals, the ghosts of the past danced and twirled, lived and died, all before the glistening gaze of Liara T'Soni.

The fortress around her, a home now of seven years, had once held the condemned of her kind, the Ardat-Yakshi. The Reapers had claimed the monastery on Lesuss temporarily, but through the work and devotion of Falere and Samara, it had been restored. Though Falere remained a resident, the place no longer titled 'prison' as its primary function; now it played a contradictory role, one meant to protect the inhabitants from the dangers of the universe entire.

A mountain fortress on an isolated world, the perfect place to guard the universe's greatest treasure.

'Mommy!'

Like it had for seven years, the simple word carried with it the ticking clock of Innocence's expiration.

Peeling the sorrow from her face, Liara spun, a smile adorning her beautiful features before the circuit was completed. Though unnoticed by the child, the Asari's jubilant reply came coated with the last few sands of borrowed time.

'My sweet!'

The little boy leapt into her arms and buried his head into the warmth of her lined jacket. Though too big to be lifted, Liara still tried. He had grown so fast; the advanced aging patterns of humans making his development seem nearly instantaneous to the long lived Asari. To her it had seemed as if he had cooed in her arms one moment and taken his first step the next.

The blinking of her eyes seemed long by comparison.

A few blinks more and he would be old enough to leave this place.

Still more and he would be the same age as his father.

Goddess willing, in the next couple of blinks, he would have a family and make a grandmother of her.

And she would look the exact same.

But those blinks, those wonderful dilemmas, were for a time not yet here, not quite.

No, now had come the blink she had been dreading for seven years; the blink where he was old enough.

Old enough to know.

'Mommy, Falere said she would teach me some more about the Krogans, if it was okay w…' his kind voice turned pensive. 'Mommy, why are you crying?'

Liara hadn't realized she'd let a tear escape, but instead of concocting a false excuse for its existence, the heroic Asari opted to tell her son the truth.

'Oh I was just thinking of old friends.'

The child's face brightened a bit,

'Uncle Garrus?'

Liara smiled, knowing that his question contained a thinly veiled exploration, one that hoped his favorite uncle was coming to visit and perhaps already en route.

'No, but Uncle Garrus knew them…very well.'

'Who were they, Mommy?'

The question echoed into the future and back into the past. It marked itself as a moment by which all that followed and all that preceded it would be measured; for after it was answered nothing could ever be the same.

Another tear fell from Liara's eye.

'You are getting so big,' the Asari tried to buy more time, time where she was the child's one and only 'Mommy'.

Liara knew it was selfish. Others had carried greater burdens, and others had surely sacrificed more, but to change the way the little boy 'looked' at her?

She would rather face a hundred Reapers.

However, that moment like all the others was finite. Now was the time.

She had a promise to keep.

_Tell our story._

''Who were they?'', Liara repeated the question, trying it on as one might a dress not worn in decades.

A sorrow-free smile touched her lips.

'They were heroes…the greatest in all the universe.'

Upon hearing the mention of heroes, the boy's dark expression lifted and an eager light flashed through his eyes.

'Did they have adventures?'

'They did indeed, many adventures.'

'What were their names?'

Again the simplicity of the question tugged at Liara's heart, making her feel a great guilt for not having told him sooner. But, seven had been the age upon which she had decided; a time come too soon yet a time come none-the-less.

The Asari's eyes travelled back into the past, and though a smile still tickled her lips more tears fell,

'The first was a knight, the greatest of all the knights; handsome, trustworthy and selfless. His name…'

Liara's voice caught and her chin trembled,

'Was Shepard the Brave.'

The little boy's eyes glowed even brighter and his mouth dropped open,

'Just like me?'

'Just like you,' she said and cupped his cheek.

'And who was the other hero?

Again Liara smiled through her tears,

'The other was a powerful witch. The most powerful witch there has ever been.'

The boy's eyes narrowed,

'A 'good' witch or a 'bad' witch?'

Liara paused for just a beat,

'She was a very, very 'good' witch, though I'm not so sure she would've wanted anyone to know that.'

Satisfied by the answer, the boy's smile returned in full,

'What was her name?'

'Her name,' Liara's eyes simultaneously saw the mother from the past and the son from the present.

'Her name was Jack…Jack the Giant Slayer.'

The wind swirled and the snow fell, and in that cold climate so warm with the love and devotion of three parents, a story…a love story was told.

(At the same time)

The young Ensign stared down the dimly lit steps with a flashlight in one had and a heavy spanner in the other; the latter raised defensively.

'Who's there?', the young man whipped the beam of light down the steps trying to access every shadowed corner of the Normandy's engineering sweeps.

'Listen,' the Ensign's voice rose a bit adding the tonality of fear to his command.

'I'm going to call security.'

At that moment, Chief Engineer Adams's familiar form breezed through the automated door and onto the grated decking. He was about to great the younger man, when he noticed the tension in his counterpart's face.

'What is it, Ensign? What's got you spooked, Paul?'

The young man continued to shine his light down the steps into the access-ways beneath them.

'I heard something, Chief.'

Adams smiled, immediately lightening the mood,

'It'd be a real problem if you didn't hear anything, son. This is Engineering, you're smack dab in the middle of the nosiest part of the ship.'

Still the Ensign's torchlight sought to clear the shadows, but the common sense in Adams's words eased the concern from around the young man's eyes. Within a few beats, he switched off his flashlight and turned to his superior.

'I'm sorry, Sir. I haven't been to sleep for a bit. Mind's playing tricks on me.'

Adams clapped the Ensign on the shoulder,

'Nothing to apologize for, son. In fact you go right on 'hearing' things. Could be the next one is a faulty bypass line that you catch early enough to save us a weeks worth of slog work.'

'Yes, sir!', the ensign grinned.

'Now get some sleep,' Adams ordered.

Without another word, the younger man turned to head for the lifts, when his superior asked one final question.

'Just in case, Paul, what did you hear? I'll keep my ears perked.'

A tinge of crimson touched the young man's neck,

'N-nothing, Sir. It seems silly now.'

'Humor an old man.'

The Ensign bit his lower lip before continuing.

'I thought I heard laughing. It sounded like there were two people down there…carrying on.'

Adams's eyes softened,

'I'll make sure no one snuck down there with a bottle of brandy. Goodnight, Paul.'

'Goodnight, Sir!'

With the skip of relief in his step, the younger man vanished into the main hallway.

Adams turned and looked down into the shadowed depths of the access ways. With his eyes glistening, the engineer snapped a perfect salute.

'Goodnight, Commander.'

The door closed behind him, leaving the area in peace.

THE END

(Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading. Your interest and support means the world to me!)


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